


in a perfect world (a miracle would happen)

by pieandsouffles



Series: everyone bleeds [2]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Dad Bruce Wayne, Drama, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Oral Sex, POV Bruce Wayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 12:40:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12081258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffles/pseuds/pieandsouffles
Summary: "Bruce looked at Clark, finally realizing what he should have known all along: they didn’t live in a bubble, not anymore, and this was going to be a hell of a lot harder than he’d ever expected."or, the one where Bruce gets in over his head, tries to parent, and needs to Deal with his own bullshit





	1. close your eyes, close your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> keep an eye out for the excessive amounts of quotes from batman's comics 
> 
> also sorry about the brooding but omg have u read the batman comics they are so Dramatic like Bruce is the Ultimate Drama Queen 
> 
> also also this fic will be infinitely better for you if you read the first in the series, which basically explains everything happening here. when i started this i had no idea it would turn into a three-fic monstrosity, which explains why this is being posted in a trilogy instead of as one cohesive story ok u know what im just gonna stop now

“Mr. Wayne, I understand your nights are full of excitement, but at some point even the Prince of Gotham has to start paying some attention during Board meetings.”

Bruce jerked awake at the sound of the voice, rudely brought back to the bright board room on the top floor of Wayne Tower. He glared guiltily at Lucius Fox, who was standing across from him, conference room table in between. Bruce had been so lost in his own head he hadn’t even noticed the meeting end, and the room was empty save for the two of them.

“Well, Lucius, if the meetings weren’t scheduled so early, I might stand a chance at staying awake,” he said cheerfully, injecting some Brucie charm into his voice. He was lucky Fox humored him.

“Most people wouldn’t consider a noon meeting to be early, Mr. Wayne,” Fox pointed out, gesturing towards the door to indicate they should leave. Bruce stood up reluctantly, back aching from the awkward position in which he’d fallen asleep. “But I suppose most people also don’t spend their evenings wandering the streets of Gotham punching criminals, do they?”

Bruce hummed his assent. “No, Lucius, I suppose they don’t. But we all know the Batman is a little crazy.”

“It seems he’d have to be,” Lucius grumbled, holding open the door for Bruce. “Will you be returning to the office, Mr. Wayne?”

“I don’t think so,” Bruce said lightly, fastening the button on his jacket as they waited for the elevator. “I have some projects to work on at home.”

“Anything I can help you with?” Fox asked as the elevator doors slid open.

Bruce smiled, but it was _his_ smile, not Brucie’s. “Not as of yet, Mr. Fox. I’ve got to see someone about a… mangled business transaction. It probably won’t be too pleasant, so I’d rather not involve anyone else just yet.” He stepped inside the doors and pressed the button for the lobby.

“Well, good luck with that, Mr. Wayne,” Fox said, smiling to himself and returning to his office as the elevator doors closed, leaving Bruce alone with his thoughts.

He _did_ have someone he needed to see, but Bruce wouldn’t be the one finding him.

#

Bruce strapped on the Batsuit, already sweating underneath the thick layers of Kevlar and leather, when his comm buzzed. He hesitated to answer, having a fairly good idea who was on the other line. He needed to be focused tonight if he was going to find Hugo Strange, and the weather was already making his job harder.

As much as he hated having to patrol in the snow or rain - it limited visibility and made it more difficult for Batman to surveil the scum of Gotham - he almost preferred it to patrolling in the heat of summer. Criminals were always more active when the weather was nice, and the warm temperatures, paired with oppressive humidity, made it too easy to become dehydrated.

Sighing, Bruce answered the comm. Try as he might, he couldn’t ignore Superman, not after their conversation that morning, not after everything that had happened in the dark hours of the night.

“Batman here,” he said, pulling on the cowl and checking the Batcomputer one more time to review his intel.

“Hey, B,” came Clark’s voice, and Bruce felt something uncomfortably like butterflies in his stomach, much to his embarrassment. _Focus, Bruce_.

“What do you want?” he asked, knowing it was too gruff, but hoping Clark would realize he wasn’t in a position for an extended conversation.

Clark hesitated, and Bruce immediately felt guilty - he should make more of an effort to be kind to Clark, after all that had transpired between them. “I was just wondering if you… if we were… well, Lois comes back from Turkey tomorrow, and….”

“I should be home from patrol no later than…” Bruce paused, checking the time, “two. Probably earlier, but I can’t guarantee it.”

There was a sigh of relief from Clark’s end, and Bruce felt something ease up in his chest. “So is it okay if I…?”

“Yes,” he said curtly, pushing back from the Computer and heading for the Batmobile, only then noticing the small figure perched on the hood. “S, I have to go.”

“Okay. See you later, B.”

Bruce cut the connection without a goodbye, knowing it wasn’t expected of him, and stalked up to Dick, who was somehow already in costume. He fixed his adopted son with what Dick (along with every other goddamn member of the JL) had started calling the “Bat-glare,” but the boy stared back at him defiantly, arms crossed across his chest.

“Not tonight, Dick,” he said, moving to brush past him, but Dick jumped off the Batmobile and stood directly in his way. Bruce took a deep breath and tried to unclench his teeth.

“No. I’m coming with you,” Dick said stubbornly, frowning up at Bruce. “The last time you went out without me, you got hurt. I’m not gonna let that happen again.”

Unbelievable - he was still a child, and was already trying to take responsibility for Bruce’s mistakes. “Absolutely not,” Bruce said, remembering why he was doing this, who he was going after. “I won’t risk your identity like that, Dick. The minute someone finds out that you’re my - ward,” he said, stumbling over the word _son_ , “Dick Grayson will be a target, too. Not just Robin.”

Dick had noticed Bruce’s choice of words, and his eyes were downcast when he said, “I can take care of myself, Bruce.”

“You’re just a kid,” Bruce sighed, reaching out to put a hand on Dick’s shoulder. Dick shrugged it off. “You can come on patrol tomorrow night.”

At that, Dick raised his head and looked Bruce square in the eye. “If you don’t bring me, I’ll just follow you.”

_Incredible_ , Bruce thought. _Eleven years old, and he can manipulate the Batman better than any criminal._ He huffed, knowing it was futile - there was no way he was letting Dick out of his sight if he wouldn’t stay in the Manor. “Fine,” he said, simultaneously impressed by Dick’s temerity and apprehensive of how it would likely get worse as Dick got older. “Come with me, but you follow _every_ command I give you, and _stay out of the way_.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Dick said cheerily, nearly skipping around to the passenger side of the Batmobile before climbing in.

“So,” Dick drawled after they’d left the Cave, exactly at the point where Bruce couldn’t turn around without risking extensive delay of the mission. He would never admit it out loud, but Bruce sometimes wished that just once, Dick could act like a normal kid.

“What,” he growled, certain he wouldn’t like what was coming next.

“You weren’t at breakfast this morning.”

That did surprise Bruce. “I’m never at breakfast on weekdays. Nobody should wake up that early.”

“So that’s the only reason,” Dick pressed, and Bruce was rapidly regretting bringing the kid along on patrol.

He huffed. “I don’t have to talk to you about this.”

Bruce saw Dick grin out of the corner of his eye. “It was Clark, wasn’t it?”

“Dick,” Bruce said warningly.

“I mean, I could be wrong, but isn’t he married?” Dick said casually, and Bruce saw red.

“Stop. Talking,” he said, voice strained. “We can discuss this later.”

Dick had the nerve to open his mouth again. “Promise?”

“Yes,” Bruce rasped reluctantly, bringing the Batmobile to a halt deep in the heart of Hell’s Crucible. “But right now, we have a criminal to catch.”

#

It took them three hours before they found Strange in the basement of a warehouse, Scarecrow by his side, apparently collaborating on some bastardized version of Scarecrow’s fear toxin. Bruce wasn’t sure if his antidote would treat the symptoms of the new drug, and he wasn’t eager to find out.

It wasn’t a difficult takedown; it took him and Robin less than three minutes to get the villains tied up in the corner of the room. Scarecrow was knocked out from a particularly well-placed blow from one of Robin’s escrima sticks, Strange conscious but hunched over what was likely a broken rib. Batman hand’t been gentle. Robin put the finishing touches on Strange’s bonds, grinning all the while with the joy of being out on patrol again. Batman knew he’d been self-isolating too long if Robin was happy about nearly getting poisoned by rogues for what was probably the fifteenth time.

“Robin, collect a sample of that drug and call GCPD,” Batman ordered, turning towards the corner where Strange was tied up.

“Yessir,” Robin said, practically bouncing with eagerness. Safe behind the cowl, Batman rolled his eyes - any sane child would’ve hung up the cape by now, with how many times Robin had been kidnapped. But no, he was just excited to risk his neck again.

A little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Alfred whispered, _yes, I wonder where he gets that from_. Batman pointedly ignored it and crossed the room with a careful movement of his cape, calculated to make it look like he was almost floating. It scared lesser criminals, but he knew Strange would only find something fascinating in it. Still, it never hurt to appear more than human.

“Batman,” Strange said, leering. “So good to see you again. It’s been too long.”

“Not nearly long enough,” Batman snarled, roughly shoving Strange back against the wall. “Why don’t we catch up? I’ll go first.” He punched Strange square in the mouth, knocking out one of his teeth. “Your turn.”

Strange laughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. “You’re upset about last week.”

“You could say that,” Batman growled.

Hollow eyes looked up at him from a face splattered in blood. “Oh, Batman _._ You should know at this point… you’re more than him. You’re _beyond_ him.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Batman said before he could stop himself, gripping Strange by his lapels, wanting nothing more than to cave the man’s head in with his bare hands. _Don’t make it personal._

Too late.

Strange shrugged, or tried to - his mobility was limited by Robin’s bindings and Batman’s hold. “We are more alike than you think, Batman. Both geniuses,beyond the capacities of lesser men to understand. Look at us - we could be kings.” 

“We are nothing alike,” Batman spat.

“Would it not be easier, Batman, if we could just remove all that made man fragile? Remove the emotion, those thoughts that hold us back, that make humans compassionate, _weak_. It hurts me to see you like this - to see such power brought low by some misplaced affection for an _alien_.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated hollowly.

Strange laughed, blood trickling slowly down his chin. “Batman, if only you would see it. You are… _perfection_ , and you are wasting it on a man who is not even _human_. You are so much _better_ than him, don’t you see? ‘The World’s Finest,’ they call you, but he can’t hold a candle to your brilliance.”

_Fucking villains_. “You overestimate my abilities, Strange.” 

“I don’t think I do. What made you like this, Batman? What trauma drove you to this? Is it not more _just_ than the alien, with all his strength? He does not have your power, your _drive._ ” 

“You’re done,” Batman growled, aware of Robin standing in the door behind them. He stood to leave, but Strange spoke again.

“He will destroy you, Batman. He will take you and _tame_ you. I cannot let that happen, you understand. I will not let him ruin you.”

Bruce was immensely grateful for his years of training with the League of Shadows - it made it possible for him to resist killing Strange right there. “Even if he did,” he said, voice steady, “you won’t be free to see it.” Batman hit a pressure point on the back of Strange’s neck, and the man crumpled, unconscious.

When Batman turned around, Robin was still in the doorway. “GCPD are on their way. Is he okay?” he asked dubiously, looking down at Strange.

“For now,” Batman said, striding out of the room and out into the alleyway where the Batmobile was parked. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t want to wait for Gordon?” Robin asked, hesitating by the door.

Batman kept walking. “No. Now get in, or you’ll be running rooftops the whole way back.”

“You’re soulless,” Robin grumbled, doing a flip over the hood of the Batmobile, probably just because he could.

Batman smiled at that. “So they tell me.”

They pealed out of the alleyway, Bruce’s attention already wandering. Strange’s warning reverberated in his ears, and he tried to set it aside, if only to focus on the conversation he knew would be coming once he got back to the Manor. Try as he might, however, it seemed he couldn’t escape Dick.

“So,” the kid said, twisting his torso so that he was facing Bruce head-on instead of looking out the windshield, “criminal’s been caught, GCPD’s been called… is it later yet?”

Bruce closed his eyes momentarily, careful not to take his attention off the road for too long. “Dick….”

“You did promise,” Dick said petulantly, crossing his arms and turning his head to look out the window.

Sighing, Bruce shifted his grip on the steering wheel reflexively, almost nervously. “Go ahead. Ask your questions.”

“Are Clark and Lois getting a divorce?”

Bruce’s knuckles went white. Of course. He was almost ashamed of how frequently he made the mistake of underestimating Dick.

“I don’t know,” Bruce said evasively, only half-lying.

Dick scowled. “But you asked him to.”

“How do you know that.”

“So you _did_ ask him to!” Dick crowed triumphantly, and Bruce felt his stomach knot. How did he keep letting this happen?

“Yes,” Bruce admitted, struggling to keep his heart rate under control. This wasn’t an interrogation.

“Okay,” Dick said, nodding. Bruce half-expected the next words out of the kid’s mouth to be a moral judgement, but Dick merely asked, “Will he be coming to live with us?”

“Why would you think that?” Bruce said, genuinely surprised.

Dick shrugged. “Well, he lives with Lois. He’s the one that cheated, so I just thought he’d be the one moving out. You mean you won’t ask him to move in?”

Maybe it was Bruce’s brain running wild, but it almost sounded like Dick was disappointed. “Is that something you’d like? For Clark to stay with us?”

“I don’t care,” Dick said, leaving Bruce to quietly marvel at his son’s ability to control his emotions. Anyone who didn’t know Dick would have thought he truly didn’t mind one way or another, but Bruce could see it in the set of his body, the way Dick leaned ever so slightly forward, eager.

“He’ll be there when we get back,” Bruce said, turning onto the drive that led to the Cave even as he said it. “I’ll talk to him about it tonight.”

“Okay,” Dick said easily, finally leaning back in the passenger seat and uncrossing his arms. “Thanks for telling me.”

Bruce swallowed thickly, unsure of how to vocalize what he wanted to say next. He had never been good with emotions. “You know I would never do something like ask him to move in without checking with you first, right?” When Dick didn’t say anything, Bruce added, “You’re my son now, Dick.” He was unreasonably proud of himself for forcing the word past his lips. “And you’ll always come first.”

Bruce heard something that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle coming from the passenger seat, and very carefully didn’t look that way as he pulled into the Cave.

“Thanks, Bruce,” Dick said quietly, obviously trying with little success to keep his feelings on the subject under wraps. Bruce didn’t say anything, merely turned off the car before glancing up at the Computer. Clark was already there, standing in front of the chair, dressed in a red flannel, blue jeans, and rawhide-colored Timberlands. Bruce could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Clark dressed this way - like he was heading out to a barn to milk cows - and it never failed to make him hard. Clark glanced over at them, and the smile that spread across his face literally made Bruce’s stomach feel warm, like he’d just taken three shots of fine whiskey in quick succession.

He hated the power Clark Kent had over him.

He loved it.

“Hey, Clark!” Dick said, eagerly bounding up the steps to the Batcomputer and throwing his arms around Clark’s waist. Sometimes Bruce envied him the way he could show affection so openly; Bruce himself was awful at it.

“Hey, Dick,” Clark said, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Catch any bad guys tonight?”

“Just Scarecrow and Strange,” Dick said casually, finally removing the domino mask that helped protect his identity. “Not much of a fight, but I knocked out Scarecrow!”

“Nice,” Clark said with just a touch of Superman. “I’m sure you did a great job.”

“Dick, leave the sample in the lab before you go upstairs,” Bruce said as he removed the cowl, tossing it in the general direction of the Batsuit’s display case. “It’s late. You can fill out your report tomorrow.”

Much to Bruce’s chagrin, Dick threw a very obvious wink in his direction before saying, “Okay, boss. I’ll leave you guys alone. Night, Clark! See you at breakfast tomorrow!” He practically skipped from the room, and neither Bruce nor Clark moved until his footsteps had retreated up the stairs.

Slowly, Clark turned to Bruce. “Explain,” he said, frowning.

“He asked.”

“What did you tell him?”

Bruce looked away before beginning to remove the rest of the suit. “Nothing more than what we’d already talked about.”

“How did he react?” Clark pressed, at Bruce’s side in a blur of speed, helping him remove the chest plate.

“Quite well, all things considered,” Bruce said, throwing the gauntlets into a growing heap by the cowl.

Clark stayed silent as he started working in on the shin guards. Bruce was sure he was remembering how their whole affair had started - in a manner quite similar to this, in the witching hours of the night, under the fluorescent lights of the Batcave. It was enough to make Bruce sentimental.

“Talk?” Clark asked quietly once Bruce was stripped down to the base layer he wore underneath the Suit.

“Shower. Then talk,” Bruce said, grabbing Clark’s hand and firmly directing him towards the stairs. When they reached Bruce’s bedroom, he didn’t let up on his grip, steering Clark into the bathroom.

“I don’t have any extra clothes,” Clark protested weakly, staring hungrily at Bruce’s chest as he pulled the undershirt over his head.

“As much as I love the Kansas getup - and I _do_ ,” Bruce emphasized, “I like you better naked. And I have plenty of clothes.”

Clark laughed. “I guess I can’t argue with that.” He turned on the shower as Bruce removed his boxer briefs, careful to not agitate his ribs. They’d been broken or bruised a few too many times for comfort in the last month, and the pain had started to interfere with his life as Brucie. He knew he needed to be more careful, but Strange had necessitated too many sleepless nights, too many fruitless searches.

Clark drew Bruce into the shower, maneuvering him so that he was up against a wall and Clark was practically glued to his front. Bruce smiled into Clark’s neck. “Shower, then sex,” he whispered, aware of Clark’s insistent hard-on, which was currently pressing up against Bruce’s hip. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he added when Clark gave him a look that would have made a golden retriever puppy jealous.

“We’re still going to have that conversation,” Clark murmured as he gently pressed kisses to Bruce’s neck, nipping lightly and laving over the bites with his tongue. “C’mon, baby. What’s the point of gettin’ clean if you’re just gonna go and get all dirty again?”

Bruce was rocked by a full-body shiver. Even though Clark ordinarily spoke perfect Standard American English that tended towards a Northeast or Mid-Atlantic dialect, sometimes, when he was particularly vulnerable, he would slip into a subtle variation of his native Kansas twang. Bruce had heard it very rarely - near-death experiences and sex were the only times - but it made him hotter than he cared to admit.

“You’re a menace,” Bruce growled, pulling Clark’s lips back up to his. “Fine, you win.”

“Mm,” Clark hummed happily. “Good.”

He dropped to his knees and immediately took Bruce into his mouth. And this - _god_ , Bruce could get used to this. The most powerful being in the world, on his knees, Bruce’s dick in his mouth, sucking like there was nothing else he’d rather be doing.

Sometimes he thought Clark’s mouth was the nearest thing to heaven he would ever experience.

“Fuck me,” Bruce panted five minutes later, after he was oversensitive to the point where the fucking would hurt - but Clark knew he liked it. The pain.

“Rao, look at you.” Clark was on his feet and whispering in Bruce’s ear in a movement so fast Bruce didn’t catch it. “How did I go so long without this?” he asked, gently tracing Bruce’s abs, hands sliding over his ribcage with something close to reverence. Bruce instinctively tensed for pain, even though he knew none would come - Clark could _literally_ see right through him, and was undoubtedly aware of the hairline fractures on his upper right side.

Bruce didn’t respond. He could think of several answers to that question, and all of them concerned a person he’d rather not think about. Clark, either oblivious to his reticence or willing to let it alone, lifted Bruce by his thighs so that Clark was supporting his entire body weight while _still_ working him open. Bruce was trying to figure out the mechanics of the position - exactly where was Clark’s other hand? - when Clark spoke.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and though his hand didn’t stop moving, Bruce knew (as always) that Clark would stop if asked, that he would sooner inject himself with liquid K than do anything that made someone uncomfortable.

Clark brushed up against his prostate, and Bruce choked out, “Yes, so _fuck me_ , damn it.”

He wouldn’t come again, but it didn’t matter - it was worth it to see Clark like this, water from the shower dripping from his hair, muscles gleaming in the low light of the bathroom as the world spun on uncaringly; the Gotham night, laden with unspoken threats and unfulfilled promises, unaware that just inside the walls of the Manor, its most shadowed protector was being laid bare by the most impossible light.


	2. goin' like we planned

They tumbled into bed, still naked and damp from the steam of the bathroom, which Clark had been reluctant to leave and Bruce only too eager to escape. He generally avoided having sex with the lights on - a holdover from his nights spent as playboy Bruce Wayne, perhaps, where he was always careful to fuck in the dark so that his partners couldn’t see his scars. Unfortunately for Bruce, Clark had an uncomfortable tendency to treat his mangled body as if it were nothing less than a priceless treasure, as evidenced by the way Clark ran his fingers or tongue over the bands of scar tissue whenever the opportunity arose.

As a result, even the dark of his bedroom didn’t afford Bruce the anonymity he likely required to get through the upcoming conversation.

“So,” Clark began after realizing that Bruce wasn’t about to say anything, “you told Dick.”

Sighing, Bruce leaned back against the pillows, although he remained in a sitting position, as did Clark. “I told you, he asked. He’s young, but he’s not an idiot, and he’s a good detective. It was only a matter of time before he figured it out.” Anxiety twisted in his stomach, because he knew what he had to say next, even though he wanted to avoid the subject entirely, pretend that it wasn’t his problem.

Of course, it _was_ his problem.

“Besides, I assumed… I mean, I figured that, after tomorrow-”

“Today.”

Bruce rolled his eyes, knowing Clark would see it. “After today, things would be… changing.” God, he wished he was in costume. At least the cowl provided some sort of cover for whatever microexpressions were currently working their way across his face.

“Yes,” Clark murmured, the single syllable tinged with a deep sadness Bruce recognized intimately. “I guess everything will change.”

“Dick asked,” Bruce began, but the words stuck in his throat. He took a deep breath and continued, “Dick asked if you’d be around more often.”

Bruce could barely make out Clark’s profile, but knew he was being scrutinized. “What else did he say?” Clark asked, perceptive as ever.

“He wondered if you might be staying here, while you got everything in order.”

“Well, I think it would look a little strange if _Clark Kent_ suddenly up and moved in with Bruce Wayne,” Clark pointed out. “I’ll have to get an apartment in Metropolis, if only to keep up appearances. I’d like to… come around more often, though, if you’ll have me.”

“You’re always welcome here,” Bruce said before he could stop to consider the implications of that statement. He didn’t invite people into his life like that, no strings attached. There had always been rules.

Clark smiled. “I know. But I… I’m afraid, B. I’m so afraid of how she’s going to react.”

“What will you tell her?”

“The truth,” Clark said, shrugging. “That I fell in love with someone else.”

Bruce consciously forced the tension from his body before reaching out to run a hand down Clark’s arm, loosely curling his fingers around Clark’s wrist. “She’s going to want to know who.”

“I think she might already know,” Clark said miserably, twisting his body so that he was fully facing Bruce. “I’m sure she suspects it’s someone in the League.”

Bruce nodded. “Do you think she would….” He couldn’t complete the thought, but Clark understood anyways.

“She wouldn’t do that. She’d never risk League functioning by writing some salacious story. You know that.”

He did know that, but it didn’t mean Bruce _trusted_ her. “Tell her it’s Batman.”

“Really?” Clark asked, tracing Bruce’s jawline, pushing stray hair off his forehead.

“She deserves the truth.”

Clark nodded sadly. “Yeah, she does.”

“When is she back?”

“Mid-afternoon.”

“When will you tell her?”

“As soon as she’ll let me.”

Bruce turned his gaze to the ceiling. “I’m sorry you have to do this.”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me,” Clark said, throwing out an arm and drawing Bruce into an embrace, maneuvering him so that his head was laying on Clark’s chest. Gentle fingers carded through his hair, and Bruce felt almost at peace. “Get some sleep. We can talk about this more tomorrow, after it’s all done.”

“Sure,” Bruce said. He stared at the bedroom wall, listening to Clark’s heartbeat slow until, eventually, he fell asleep, leaving Bruce alone with his thoughts.

How had they gotten here?

Bruce had been careful - so, _so_ careful - in the five years they’d known each other. He wasn’t lying when he told Clark he’d loved him from the moment they met. There had always been something so compelling about Superman, and when he’d first shown up in Gotham, wearing his obnoxiously bright suit and cape, Batman’s curtness (though some may call it cruelty) towards Superman came from a place of shock. How was he supposed to deal with this man, this _alien_ , this David come to life? Of course, as soon as Superman had opened his mouth, Bruce was immediately annoyed at his self-righteous attitude, and told him to _get out_ of Gotham, and not come back.

Bruce never could love simply, easily. Even with Alfred, or Dick, he said the wrong thing too often, pushed them away with little regard for how it affected them. And yet, they always came back. In keeping with that pattern, Superman reappeared in Gotham just in time to help Batman stop a plane from crashing into one of the many bridges connecting their two cities, somehow managing to save Bruce’s life in the process. As they debriefed the incident on the rooftop of a warehouse building, Bruce felt something stir in his chest, something he ruthlessly shoved down. He wasn’t a damsel to be swept off her feet by Superman. He wasn’t Lois Lane.

The third time they met, Batman was in Metropolis, tracking a shipment of some unidentified radioactive mineral to LexCorp. Superman arrived, yelled at him for interfering in _his_ operation (as if he had any right to complain), and then proceeded to shield Batman from a Kryptonite-laced bomb. Batman drove him back to Gotham, utterly bewildered by the bleeding and unconscious Superman in his passenger seat. This was _Superman_ \- invincible, unstoppable. He couldn’t die. Bruce wouldn’t let him.

He and Alfred spent four hours digging Kryptonite shards out of Superman’s body in the deep shadows of the Batcave - they hadn’t even installed a medical bay yet. When Superman gasped awake, Bruce thought it was just about the best sound he’d ever heard.

Superman stared at him, costume and cowl still on, and rasped, “Where am I?”

Bruce paused - they hadn’t come up with a name for it yet. He and Alfred had just taken to calling it “the Cave.”

“My base of operations,” was the best Bruce was able to come up with.

“Are we in a cave?” Superman asked, sitting up gingerly and wincing at the small lacerations that covered his body.

“Yes,” Bruce said after a moment, unsure if he should say anything more, quickly realizing what he’d been too frantic to notice before - that he’d brought _Superman_ back to _the Cave_. He would have to render the man unconscious if he was to keep his identity secret and still get Superman back to Metropolis.

“So,” Superman said, a very un-Superman-like grin stretching across his face, “I guess you could call this the Bat-Cave.”

“No,” Bruce said sharply. “Under no circumstances will it be called that.”

“Too late,” Superman laughed, swinging his legs off the cot that had served as an impromptu operating table. “Well, you’ve shown me yours, so I guess it’s only fair to show you mine.”

“What?” Bruce asked, confused, still hung up on _Bat-Cave_.

“You brought me to your… home, and just dug radioactive pieces of my home planet out of my body,” Superman said, sounding like he really thought Batman just might be crazy enough to actually _live_ in the dank, shadowed space. “So hi, Batman. Nice to meet you,” he continued, extending a hand, which Bruce took without thinking. “I’m Clark Kent.”

“The _Planet_ reporter?” Bruce asked automatically. He’d read the pieces Kent had written on Superman, of course, had searched for anything that could help him figure out the alien, determine ways to defeat him if necessary.

“The very same.”

And, in five years, Bruce had never quite been able to figure out why he released Clark’s hand, pulled off his cowl, and said, “Nice to meet you, Clark. I’m Bruce Wayne.”

He watched Clark’s entire body tense in shock, curious at the way Clark’s eyes flicked upwards for half a second before they refocused on Bruce.

“Well, I guess that explains the mansion.”

And that, Bruce thought, staring at his bedroom wall and listening to the soft metronome of Clark’s heart, had probably been the moment he’d fallen in love.

It hadn’t been an easy time of it, being in love with Superman, particularly when Clark was so obviously taken with Lois. It became easier when they established the League, and Bruce was no longer forced to spend extended periods of time alone with Clark. Still, he did everything he could to put the obsession out of his mind. He slept with what sometimes felt like every eligible woman who was part of Gotham’s elite. He slept with Selina Kyle, _Catwoman_ , just to see if it would make him feel _something_. He avoided men entirely.

Two years after Batman and Superman first met on the roof of Wayne Tower, Clark proposed to Lois. The following six months were the worst sort of torture for Bruce; all Clark ever wanted to talk about were wedding plans and Lois, how radiant she was going to look when they said their vows under an archway of gardenias and orange blossoms in the Smallville chapel. All he could do was nod and tell Clark how beautiful that would be, how wonderful Lois would look, and, when the time came, how Bruce wished him all the luck in the world.

He couldn’t be at the wedding, obviously, because Bruce Wayne would never attend the wedding of a reporter from the _Daily Planet_ , but he didn’t need to be there to imagine the scene. To picture how happy Clark was as he married this woman who would never deserve him, walked out the church doors to a shower of rice for luck, danced into the night at a reception glowing with the warmth of fairy lights and the smiles of good, wholesome people.

Bruce never could deserve Clark. He knew that. Knew that he only truly belonged in the dark, on the dirty streets of the city that he loved above almost all else. And so that was where he went, night after night, deep into the heart of Gotham. He poured himself into his work, exercised obsessively, to the point where he literally passed out from exhaustion during a business meeting the morning after an altercation with the Joker. The board of Wayne Enterprises had waved it off as typical Bruce Wayne behavior - too many nights spent partying, too many hangovers - but Alfred knew better.

It had been six months since the wedding, three years since he met Clark, when Alfred shoved an envelope into Bruce’s hand and said, “Take someone or don’t; to be honest, Master Bruce, I don’t care. But if I see you put on the Suit tonight, I’ll burn it, sir. You’re killing yourself. For once, take some time off. The city will still be standing in the morning.”

Bruce opened the envelope and checked inside. “I hope these aren’t tickets to the opera, Alfred.”

“No, Master Bruce,” Alfred said with a small smile. “They’re for the circus.”

The city was still standing in the morning, but Richard Grayson’s parents were not.

After that night, Bruce didn’t think about Clark - not that way, at least - for a long time. He had bigger responsibilities. There was nothing he could do about Clark, about Lois, and so there was no point wasting time on it.

No point at all, until Clark got down on his knees in front of Bruce that night in the Cave, _undressing_ him, and Bruce, true to form, ruined everything.


	3. we're gonna make it through

Bruce didn’t go into work that afternoon.

He had tried to talk himself down from monitoring Lois’s flight, knowing it wasn’t fair of him to be tracking her movements, waiting for the moment she’d arrive at home and finally - _finally_ \- talk to Clark. He knew, consciously, that it was invasive, that he absolutely should _not_ listen in on their conversation using surveillance equipment he’d installed in their apartment shortly after they’d moved in together. He’d justified it to himself at the time by remembering all the instances where Superman managed to get himself mind-controlled, or was exposed to red Kryptonite and endangered the lives of those around him through sheer recklessness. Bruce had never actually viewed any footage from the apartment, because no such crises had arisen, but he was sure Clark was aware of the cameras; x-ray vision meant that he probably saw the devices very soon after Bruce installed them. Clark had never made any move to destroy them, but all the same, actually _watching_ the coming talk between him and Lois would be a massive breach of privacy.

Besides, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see how Lois reacted. Bruce had never thought of himself as a home-wrecker before, but now, faced with the certainty that Clark would indeed leave her, he was starting to realize that the label applied to him. Nevertheless, he _did_ track her flight, noticed that it was coming in with a delay due to thunderstorms, and resigned himself to having to wait to hear about the conversation secondhand from Clark. He should patrol, and Lois wouldn’t be back at the apartment until after dark.

But Bruce never was good at staying out of things, and he knew Clark would likely paraphrase the discussion, make it seem like Lois had taken the news better than she actually had. So he set the equipment to record, something he’d never had to do before, and began to suit up for patrol.

As if he had placed some sort of sensor on the Batsuit’s display case, Dick appeared thirty seconds later, soon enough that Bruce couldn’t sneak out of the Batcave without him knowing.

“You know, I’m starting to think you don’t enjoy my company anymore,” Dick said as he began pulling on his boots.

Bruce huffed. “Who said I _ever_ enjoyed it?”

“Not fair,” Dick complained, fixing his domino mask over his eyes. “Are we after anyone in particular tonight?”

“The mob’s been flexing their muscles. Falcone is meeting with Bruno Manheim tonight, and we need to be there.”

Robin nodded. “Okay, do we know what the meeting’s about?”

“No,” Batman said sourly, crossing the Cave to the Batmobile. “But I think it might have something to do with a new drug - they might be trying to expand their territory into Metropolis. We need more information before we act; there could always be someone else behind Intergang’s actions, and we will probably need to involve Superman in this.”

“Working with Superman?” Robin said, eyes shining. “Cool!”

“You’ve worked with him before.”

Robin nodded as he jumped into the passenger seat. “Yeah, but-”

“Seatbelt.”

Robin glared at Batman, but did up the seatbelt anyways as the car zoomed out of the Cave. “As I was saying, I know we’ve worked with him before, but it’s always on your terms.”

Batman scowled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“No, but he’s more exciting than you.”

“Really.”

“Well,” Robin said thoughtfully, “he can shoot lasers out of his eyes and fly and stuff. Do you think he’d ever take me to see the Fortress, now that you guys are…?”

There were a great many things Batman wanted to say to Robin in that moment, foremost that this was not the time and place to be thinking of setting up an excursion with the Superman, but he simply shook his head. “Even I’ve only been there a dozen times or so. Don’t bring it up with him. And don’t mention him the rest of the night. One criminal in Gotham already seems to know about our involvement, and I don’t need the mob finding out that Batman has a soft spot for Big Blue. Understand?”

“Sure, boss,” Robin said, twirling a batarang absently in one hand. “Whatever you say.”

#

Batman watched the clock tick nearer to midnight as they waited, hidden, on the roof of a warehouse just across from the meeting point.

He was frustrated by the delay - his mind continued to wander back to the city across the bay, where Clark was probably talking to Lois _right now_. Bruce wanted to be there for him, or at least be there _emotionally_ for him (as much as was possible for Bruce, at least), but the mission always came first, and Clark knew that. Still, he was grateful he’d thought to set up a recording. If it went bad enough, there was a chance Clark wouldn’t return to Gotham that night. Bruce knew that Clark occasionally spent his evenings floating in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, where the sounds of suffering and terror, the cries for his name, could not reach him. Or perhaps he’d go to the Fortress - maybe there was some Kryptonian divorce custom Clark would have to follow?

That was ridiculous. If there had been any such custom, Bruce would have known about it years ago. Clark had given him full access to the Fortress’s files on his second visit, and Bruce had spent hours learning the alien language so that he could understand the wealth of texts provided by the AI. Alfred had dragged him upstairs to sleep on numerous occasions, since Bruce couldn’t seem to help but spend all the time he was not patrolling poring over Krypton’s documents.

Clark had been incredibly impressed that he had been able to learn the language, but in the end had admitted, “I don’t know what I expected. Of course you could get in just a few months. You’re Batman.”

It was true, Batman thought, as he watched one of Falcone’s town cars pull up. Bodyguards piled out - six or seven, for the discussion with Intergang. He listened in on the men’s whispered conversation - conducted almost exclusively in Italian - using hidden microphones he’d placed at the site two nights before. He’d always had a certain knack for languages - Italian was one he’d learned when he was thirteen, after he’d successfully mastered both French and Spanish.

_“I’m telling you, man, the bitch is crazy. She pulled a gun on Nico!”_

_“Nothing as bad as what my brother’s ex-wife did to him. Crazy cunt cut his face half off. He looked like the Joker for weeks.”_

_“That’s true, but at least she was hot!”_

“What are they talking about?” Robin asked, fidgeting slightly, like he was bored and wanted to get to fighting. Batman watched two men scale stacks of shipping containers and take up sniper positions. Falcone had learned his lesson the first time he’d run into the Batman - he always brought extra guns now.

Batman threw Robin a sharp glance, and the boy stilled, turning to look at the bay. “Nothing important,” Batman said. The kid was still young.

Robin opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly a second black town car pulled up in front of one of the stacks of shipping containers.

“Falcone,” said Batman, shifting position slightly so that he could see better. “Do you-”

“Yes,” Robin said, nodding his head in the direction of the pier, where Bruno Manheim was stepping out of a limousine. 

Batman turned on his infrared vision. “I count four.”

“And Falcone has nine, not counting the driver,” Robin whispered, peering down over the edge of the warehouse to examine the scene below. “Two hidden on top of the containers.”

“Good,” Batman said approvingly. “Snipers. Ex-military.”

“Do you think Manheim’s not worried, or just stupid?” Robin asked.

It was a good question - Batman thought back, and he couldn’t remember an instance where he’d watched two mob bosses meet so unevenly matched.The numbers certainly would give Falcone a fair shot at taking over Metropolis territory. “Intergang _is_ heavily armed,” he said, “though not accustomed to Gotham. Superman could take out a dozen men in three seconds. Manheim’s playing what he knows - it doesn’t matter how many men surround him. Falcone, though… _he_ knows safety is in numbers against the Bat; the more men he brings, the longer it takes us to get to him.” 

“Must be an important meeting,” Robin said.

“Probably.”

Manheim strode towards the town car, allowing Falcone’s driver to open the door, ushering him in. Batman turned up the sound on his recording equipment, broadening its range so that they could listen in to the conversation happening in the car.

“Carmine,” came Manheim’s voice, disarmingly jovial.

Falcone cleared his throat. “Bruno. So good of you to come all this way.”

“I’m always interested in a business opportunity. Even better, if it’s done away from Big Blue. No sign of the Batman?”

“I’ve got men keeping an eye out, but no, we’ve not seen him or the Boy Wonder. We fed the Bat some… inaccurate information. He won’t get the right location.”

“The Batman, making a mistake? That’s quite the assumption, Carmine.”

“He’s just a man. He can’t listen to conversations happening half a city away.”

“It does make doing business in Metropolis… difficult.”

“Of course.”

“So, Carmine. Why am I here?”

Falcone cleared his throat. “We’d like to know if you’ve noticed anything… peculiar, on the streets of Metropolis.”

“Peculiar?”

“A street drug,” Falcone said. “Highly addictive. Highly unstable. I wanted to talk to you face-to-face, like men, to tell you to stop distributing in Gotham if it was your product. We have enough crazy here between Scarecrow and Joker. Fear is bad for business.”

Bruno gave a small, almost distressed sound. “We’re not in the business of selling untested compounds. And Metropolis doesn’t have quite as many dark alleys as Gotham for the crazies to hide in.”

There was a brief pause, and Batman sensed that Falcone was trying to determine if Manheim was lying. “Well, I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Bruno. Thank you for coming all this way. You can understand why I didn’t want to do this over the phone - the Bat has ears everywhere.”

“Why shouldn’t he know about this? If it’s dangerous, couldn’t you use him to get it off the streets?”

“Ah, see, you’ve hit on the problem,” Falcone said. “We can’t find it. We’ve just seen its effects. If we could find dealers, we would take care of the problem.”

“Ah, well. Sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil, but even I would stay far away from _him_.” Manheim paused and laughed, a deeply unpleasant sound that reminded Batman of Himalayan avalanches. “Even in Metropolis, we know he’s the craziest of all.” 

“If you see anything, you know who to call,” Falcone said, stretching out an arm to open the door. “We would appreciate your cooperation and your discretion on the matter.”

“From one organized crime boss to another, hm?” Manheim rumbled. “But you are right. Fear is bad for business. If my men see anything odd, we will let you know.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Robin whispered. “Falcone.”

“Yes,” Batman said, staring at the infrared silhouettes of the two men in the car.

Robin looked at him, startled, like he had expected Batman to disagree. “Really? Why is he so worried about it?”

Batman frowned as he watched Manheim walk back to his car. Who could have created a drug so dangerous that Falcone was willing to reach out to Manheim for help? “Have you tested the sample we collected last night?”

“No, I didn’t think there was any rush,” Robin said as they waited for the cars to leave.

Batman watched the last car disappear back onto the thruway, and pulled out a grapnel. “There may not be. But I don’t want to take any chances. Strange may be locked up, but if that drug was so volatile it had the Roman worried, we need to know what it does.”

Bruce drove them straight back to the Cave, only paying minimal attention to the road as he thought back to his patrols over the course of the last week. He hadn’t noticed anything peculiar, nothing new being distributed in Crime Alley, but he may have missed something. 

“Dick, I need you to get in touch with Gordon,” Bruce said, yanking off the cowl and discarding it somewhere in the general vicinity of the Batmobile. “Brief him on what’s going on. We need all eyes out for whatever this is - we have no idea what the long-term effects are.”

“What the hell is this thing?” Dick asked, repeating the question Bruce had been asking himself nonstop since they left the scene of the meeting.

Bruce turned and fixed his son with his very best glare, and was secretly, appallingly pleased when Dick shrank back slightly. “I’m not sure yet, but I think I know who made it.”

“Oh god, it’s bad, isn’t it? Do you think it’s Ivy? Scarecrow?”

Bruce closed his eyes, forcefully reminding himself that the kid was _eleven_ , and it was unreasonable of Bruce to expect him to act like an adult. “I have a few guesses, Dick - besides, if Falcone cares enough to reach out to Intergang, then yes, it’s probably bad. And that’s why I need you to talk to Gordon.”

“Okay,” Dick said quietly. “Can I take the Batcycle?”

“You’re eleven,” Bruce said dumbly, quite taken aback by the question. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

 _Deep breaths_. “It’s illegal, Dick.”

“So is vigilanteism, but that’s never stopped you,” Dick pointed out, which wasn’t quite fair, but the kid _did_ know how to drive the thing. _Pick your battles, Bruce._

“Fine. But if you crash, I’ll let them throw you in juvie when they figure out it’s you behind the mask.”

“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t be too far behind,” Dick said, skipping back over to the motorcycle, crisis momentarily forgotten. “See you later, Bruce.”

He knew he should say goodbye, but Bruce didn’t do goodbyes. He turned away from the entrance to the Cave and collected the sample from the evidence locker, trying not to think about the time, about Clark, about what on earth the drug could possibly do that had Gotham’s most notorious crime boss so concerned.


	4. I'll be there

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know, i felt bad about plot devices in this chapter, but then i read an issue of the new 52 JL where bruce literally reveals his identity and Sad Backstory to hal about two hours after meeting him, in the middle of a battle with darkseid, by taking off his mask and then bouncing and hitching a ride with a parademon to apokolips to go rescue superman who he fucking got in a fight with like 45 minutes before 
> 
> after that, i was kinda like, you know, fuck it

It took Bruce only an hour to run the full gamut of tests on Strange and Scarecrow’s compound, and he was unsurprised by what he found: the drug seemed to stimulate cell growth, increasing strength, stamina, and regeneration capabilities. He had seen something similar created by Strange before, but this particular compound appeared to contain traces of Scarecrow’s fear toxin, resulting in increased reflexes but likely producing the side effect of extreme paranoia, and possibly leave its victim more susceptible to suggestion. He recognized the same symptoms that had afflicted him the last time he’d run into Strange alone; he’d been prepared with an antidote, but the serum was so potent, the antidote hadn’t been enough - the dose had almost killed him. It probably _would_ have killed him, had Clark not come running when he called. Bruce stared at the Computer, transfixed by the readouts, trying to determine if this was the drug that had so worried Falcone. Even if it was, why would Strange and Scarecrow distribute it so freely? On a more comforting note, the two were now in Arkham, which would mean it would be out of circulation until their next escape.

Bruce reflexively checked the the time and grimaced when he saw that it was already two-thirty in the morning. Not late for Batman, but very late for Clark.

The Cave echoed with the rumbling sound of the Batcycle’s engine, and Robin came tearing through the waterfall entrance at a speed that was not at all safe for the enclosed space. He skidded to a halt and flipped off the front of the Cycle in one smooth motion, landing lightly on his feet.

“Show-off,’ Bruce grumbled quietly, pulling up news feeds to check if Superman was active.

Dick approached the Batcomputer with a hesitance that made Bruce’s stomach churn. “He didn’t come?”

No news of Superman, and no sign of any natural disasters or apartment fires that would require his attention. “No,” Bruce said, pushing back from the Computer. “Go to bed.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dick said, already heading for the stairs. “Gordon says he’s on it. They’ll be monitoring all incoming ODs, and the mob. Well, his exact words were, ‘I’ll do what I can to help, but you know as well as I that half the cops in this damn city are either on the mob’s payroll or are addicted themselves.’”

“He’s not wrong,” Bruce said, burying his head in his hands. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dick.”

“Night, Bruce.”

He listened to the sound of Dick’s footsteps on the stairs, making sure he’d actually left the Cave before pulling up the feeds from Clark and Lois’s apartment. Just as he began to fast-forward through the day’s recordings, though, he heard another set of footsteps.

“Master Bruce,” came Alfred’s voice from the entrance to the Cave. Bruce didn’t turn around. “Would you care for some tea?”

“No,” Bruce said, pausing the recordings. Alfred set a tray next to him anyways, complete with a cup of Earl Grey and a small plate of cookies; Bruce pointedly ignored the cookies, but reluctantly took the tea.

“Rough night, sir?”

Bruce closed his eyes briefly. “You could say that.”

“Will it just be you and Master Dick for breakfast tomorrow, then, sir?”

“Seems so.” Bruce wished he would go away, but also did not want to be alone down there, in the dark, damp of the Cave.

Alfred was silent for a moment, and Bruce could feel his eyes boring into the side of his head. At last, he spoke. “Forgive me, Master Bruce, but you cannot watch that tape.”

Bruce bristled. “Why not? It’s my problem, too.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but it is _not_. It is a matter for Master Clark and Miss Lane to handle, and you should not, under any circumstances, invade their privacy any more than-”

“Alfred, I-”

“Bruce,” Alfred said, and Bruce stopped short. Alfred _never_ addressed him as just ‘Bruce’ unless he was very angry, or very disappointed. “Haven’t you done enough?”

The teacup smashed as Bruce stood abruptly, hands balling into fists as he fought back the urge to punch something. “This is _not_ my fault, Alfred! I didn’t steal him away; he made his own decisions, and he has to live with those choices. I kept quiet for _years_ ,” he hissed, taking a step towards Alfred, who stood his ground. “I didn’t say _anything_ , I’ve been nothing but a good friend to him _and_ to Lois, and now that I have this one bit of - of happiness, you’re telling me it’s wrong?”

“I said no such thing,” Alfred protested, “only that you should not intrude on their personal life any more than you have. If Master Clark wants you to know what happened in that apartment, he will tell you, sir. I love you like my own blood, but you are _miserably_ lacking in social skills, Master Bruce, and even worse with recognizing peoples’ right to privacy. If not for Master Clark, do it for Miss Lane. Respect her, at least.”

Bruce opened his mouth to retaliate, but snapped it shut when he realized Alfred was right. He’d already ruined her marriage - her life plan too, probably - who was he, to intrude on such a private, vulnerable moment? “Fine,” he conceded. “But I won’t delete it.”

“A wise choice, Master Bruce,” Alfred said, picking up the tray and carefully stepping over the jagged remnants of the teacup. “I trust you shall clean that up, sir,” he said.

“I thought that’s what I paid you for,” Bruce said, bending down to pick up the pieces. One of the smaller shards slipped and sliced open the pad of his thumb. Bruce ignored it.

“Yes, sir,” said Alfred. “Nevertheless, even billionaires must sometimes clean up their own messes.” He vanished up the stairs, leaving Bruce alone with the broken teacup and the dim rustle of bats.

#

He waited in the Cave for another twenty minutes before finally going upstairs, mentally rescheduling meetings so that he could sleep in. God, he was tired - it had been a long few weeks, between Strange and everything else.

Bruce showered mechanically, so different from the brief moment of stillness he and Clark had shared just after Bruce had been poisoned with the enhanced fear toxin. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the way Clark had held him that night, like he was something to be protected; how Clark had fucked him in that shower just the day before, slow and full of unspoken promises. How Clark had looked when Bruce had told him, _I want you to leave your wife_.

 _Your wife_. God, he was such a coward. He couldn’t even say her name. _Lois. Lois._

“Lois,” he said aloud, tasting it on his tongue as he watched water droplets chase themselves down the glass shower door.

Then something was different in the bathroom - a sudden displacement of space, though Bruce had not heard a noise. “I hope you’re not thinking about Lois in the shower,” came a voice from over by the sinks. Bruce didn’t startle - he knew that voice, had known who was in the bathroom the second he felt the air change. “Because that would be awkward.”

Clark’s voice was low and forced, as if he knew the joke was falling flat but didn’t know how to proceed otherwise. Bruce scrubbed his hands through his hair once more and turned the tap off, opening the shower door to let the steam billow out. 

He searched for something to say - something that would show Clark just how much he loved him, how happy he was that Clark had chosen him, after everything. “You came,” was all he managed.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Clark said softly, suddenly in front of Bruce and tracing the bullet scars on his pectorals. “I needed some time.”

“I know,” Bruce said, towel-drying his hair before leaving the bathroom stark naked. “Are you coming to bed?”

“Do you want me to?”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

Clark followed him to the bed, where he laid down gingerly beside Bruce. They were silent for what felt like an hour, but was really only a few minutes, until Clark said, “No reaction?”

“What?”

“You saw it happen,” Clark said, trailing his fingers down the lines of Bruce’s abdominals.

Bruce swallowed, uncomfortably aware of the debt he now owed Alfred. “I didn’t watch it.”

“You have cameras installed all over my apartment,” Clark said, baffled. “You’re the most paranoid man I know. You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “I wanted to - _badly._ But I didn’t.” He sighed, twisting so that he was directly facing Clark. “It wouldn’t have been right, to do that to her. To Lois,” he added, practically grinding the word out of his mouth.

Clark stared at him, then unexpectedly broke out into a small smile. “Have I mentioned today how lucky I am to be in love with you?”

“How was it?” Bruce asked, ignoring the comment. He had never been very good with compliments, and much preferred to avoid them whenever possible.

The smile disappeared. “She was… angry. Yet not angry at all, you know?”

“No.”

“Well, I didn’t pick her up from the airport. She caught a ride home with Jimmy - our photographer? He’d gone with her on assignment. Good kid.”

Bruce nodded, staring at the ceiling, trying hard not to tell Clark to hurry the fuck up. “Yeah, I’ve met him once or twice.”

“Right,” Clark said, the smile back on his face, “I guess you do own the paper. So anyways, I was waiting for her in the living room, but she took one look at me and said, _Stay there. I need to shower before we do this._ So,” he huffed, laughing a little, “I did as she asked, and twenty minutes later she was back - Rao, she’d taken the time to make up an overnight bag.” Clark stopped talking, and Bruce glanced over to see tears tracking down his cheeks. Clark turned away slightly, as if he were ashamed of Bruce seeing him cry.

“Okay, stop,” Bruce said, reaching out instinctively to wipe the tears away. “You don’t need to say any more.”

“Just… just watch it, okay? You need to,” Clark said, clearly struggling to get himself under control.

“I don’t think I should-”

“No,” Clark cut in, firm. “She… she asked.” 

“She… okay,” Bruce said, unsure if he’d heard right, but willing to trust Clark anyways. “Get some sleep, all right? Dick’ll be excited that you’re here for breakfast.”

Clark nodded and turned on his side. “Thanks, B. Good night.”

Bruce said nothing, just slowed his breathing and heart rate to help Clark fall asleep. It worked - he was out within five minutes. Soundlessly, Bruce slipped off the bed and grabbed a robe before stealing down to the Cave. There was no universe in which he would wait to watch that recording until the following day.

He checked the clock as he reawakened the Batcomputer - it was nearly 4:30 am. He mentally scanned through his appointments once more, pushing anything before 11 am back to one, and moving anything before 2 pm to the following Monday.

Batcomputer finally awake and whirring, he pulled up the surveillance footage and fast-forwarded to the point where Lois reentered the living room, an overnight pack in hand. Bruce took a deep breath, and then pressed play.

“Thanks for not visiting me when I was away,” Lois said. “I know that must’ve been hard.” Her face was tight and flushed, like she was trying not to cry - or maybe she was still hot from the shower.

Clark swallowed, then said in a strangled voice, “You had Jimmy there with you, I wasn’t worried.”

He was a terrible liar.

Lois stared at him hard, then sat down gingerly on the armchair across from the couch. “You’re a terrible liar.” Bruce laughed, a startled, horrified sound, at the comment. No wonder Clark had fallen in love with her. 

“Lois-”

“Clark, can I just… just let me speak,” she said, and Clark’s mouth snapped shut. “I’ve thought a lot about this, over the last couple weeks. The last couple months, to be honest. I guess I knew something was wrong a long time ago, I just thought maybe… maybe you’d get over it. Get it out of your system,” she added, in a way that reminded Bruce uncomfortably of the rationale he and Clark had used the first time they’d had sex. “But I know that hasn’t happened. And I think I know what you’re going to say to me, but I want to hear it from you anyways. I think I deserve that much.”

“You deserve so much more than that,” Clark said, and Bruce was a little surprised to hear how his voice wavered, the same way Dick’s did when he was trying not to cry. “Lois,” he started, then paused and took a deep breath. “Lois, I’m in love with someone else.”

It was as if she had been physically hit. Lois recoiled, the pain clear on her face even though she must have known what was coming. “I know,” she said, and now she _was_ crying, which was even worse than seeing Clark cry - Lois was one of the toughest individuals Bruce knew, and he had never seen her emotionally vulnerable. Even when her father, General Lane, passed away, she didn’t weep - just stood up and delivered a eulogy that would have befitted a fallen President. “For how long?”

“How long have I been in love with them?” Clark asked, bewildered at the question.

“How long have you been seeing them?” she asked instead.

Clark swallowed uncomfortably. “Almost three months. I think - I think I’ve been in love with them for a long time.”

Lois buried her face in her hands. “Who is it, Clark?”

“I think you probably know,” he whispered, making an aborted move towards her. A reflex. From all the times he’d comforted her before.

“Yeah, I think I do,” Lois said, lowering her hands to look Clark in the eyes. Her face was shining with tears, even in the dim light of the apartment. “Why him, Clark? You’ve known him for five years. Why now?”

“I can’t explain it,” Clark said, shrugging helplessly. “All I can say is that something happened, and… everything changed. Lois… I need you to know that I still love you. I love you so, so much.”

“But it’s not enough,” Lois said, nodding, and Bruce thanked god that she had finally stopped crying. Her next words were bitter, cutting - sarcastic, but in a way that implied she believed what she was saying. “Who could ever compare to the Batman?”

Bruce winced, wracked with an entirely unexpected pang of shame and guilt. All Lois saw was the hero, the detective, the man who stood at her husband’s side in battle, as an equal. She was wrong. He had never been that person. Bruce was selfish, cruel, willing to tear away this part of her life for little more than a glimmer of happiness in his own.

Lois was a better person than he ever would be.

“No, no,” Clark said, reaching out to take her hand. To Bruce’s surprise, she let him. “It’s not like that at all. I don’t know how to explain it. You were always more than enough, and I love you so much, but I can’t… I realized, recently, that I can’t…. Well, I realized that I’m in love with him. It’s like everything that’s happened these last five years has somehow been leading up to this point. And I… I’m sorry I didn’t know, that I didn’t see it a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t help me now,” Lois said, and the words were cruel but not unfair. “But at least now, I know.” She withdrew her hand from Clark’s grasp and stood up. “I’m going to stay with Lucy. I told her… I told her I thought something might happen. She’s expecting me.”

“Okay,” Clark said, rising as well. “But don’t feel like you have to leave… I don’t want you to have to move out because of me, I’d already made arrangements-”

“To what, move into the Batcave?” Lois said, and the words came out sharper than she’d probably intended, accompanied as they were by a sneer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Just - there are a lot of memories here for me, Clark. I don’t think I can stay here. I’ll make some calls tomorrow, get my stuff moved out. Find a new place to live.”

“Oh,” Clark said, and Bruce watched as Clark seemed to crumple in on himself, a remarkable feat since he was still standing straight and tall. “Okay.”

“I’ll call a lawyer tomorrow, get some papers drawn up,” she continued, picking up her overnight bag. “I don’t want this to be painful, Clark. I still care about you, and I want to… fix this, after everything is done.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Clark whispered. “I know I’m going to, in some ways, but I can’t… Lois, you’ve been my best friend for five years. I know you need time. But maybe, after everything is done….”

Lois stepped forward and gently squeezed his shoulder. “I hope so, too.”

“I love you,” Clark said, reaching up to take her hand.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry it’s not enough. I’m sorry for going behind your back. For lying. For… for everything.”

Lois gently disentangled her hand from Clark’s. “I know that, too. Maybe someday, I’ll even forgive you.” She turned to leave, but stopped halfway through the doorway. “And Clark?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t think I’ve somehow missed all the cameras he’s installed in this apartment over the course of the last few years. I’m sure he’s recording this, and you should tell him to watch it. I want him to see what he’s done.”

“Lois-”

“No,” she interjected, staring directly at the camera hidden in the mantle. Bruce cursed - he thought he’d hidden that one fairly well, too.

“Batman,” Lois said, and Bruce felt strangely exposed, like she was somehow in the Cave speaking to him directly, “I will _never_ forgive you for this. I know we’ve only met a few times, and I even admired you for a while, but you are a coward. You hide behind your mask, only operating in the dark, never letting anyone in, and when you do - when you _finally_ do - you have to pick my _husband_? I don’t know who you are… but you had better hope that I never find out.”

“Lois,” Clark tried again, “please.”

“No,” she said curtly. “I’m allowed to be angry, Clark. And he ought to know about it.” She hitched her bag further on her shoulder, giving Clark a sad smile. “I guess I’ll call you with details tomorrow. And I should probably give this back.” She removed her wedding ring and set it down on the coffee table.

Clark said nothing, but it was as if something inside him had cracked; he’d finally begun to cry.

“Goodbye, Clark,” she said, opening the door once more.

Clark stood there, silent and motionless, as Lois closed the door. “Goodbye, Lois,” he said, but the apartment was empty, quiet, and Clark was alone.

#

When he got back to bed, it was nearly 5:15. Clark rolled over, half-awake, staring blearily up at Bruce. “You watched it?” he said, and to Bruce’s horror it sounded like he was going to cry again.

“Yes,” Bruce whispered, drawing Clark against his chest and combing his fingers through Clark’s hair.

Clark did begin to cry, then, his tears falling slowly onto Bruce’s bare skin. “If you don’t want me-”

Bruce cut him off. “Stop. Don’t - don’t cry, okay? I’m always going to be here. I won’t let you go.”

“Okay,” Clark murmured, and the tears stopped coming. “Okay.”

Bruce listened as Clark’s breathing slowed once more, staring out the balcony windows at the promise of sunrise to the east. “Okay,” he repeated. 


	5. nothing else will matter

Bruce woke to a warm mouth trailing kisses down his back as he tried to shy away from the sunlight that was now insistently filling the room. The heat of August was predicted to bleed over into September, with somewhat cooler mornings as the only consolation. Crisp mornings did nothing for Bruce - except, perhaps, this.

Clark’s tongue swirled around scar tissue on his lower back - a knife wound, courtesy of the Joker, who had somehow managed to slide it right between his armor plates.

“What time is it,” Bruce mumbled into his pillow as Clark gently kneaded his shoulder muscles. God, his fingers were magic - perks of being super-strong and nearly impenetrable.

“9:30,” Clark said quietly, but with an undertone like he was trying not to laugh.

Bruce frowned. “You know I didn’t get to sleep until dawn, right?”

Clark hummed disinterestedly. “It’s a beautiful Saturday. You can sleep later, but Dick and Alfred are downstairs making pancakes and I _really_ want some.”

“Go by yourself. Leave me here to sleep.”

“Pass,” Clark said, grinning against Bruce’s skin. “Come on, you know it’ll mean the world to Dick.”

Bruce finally flipped over to face Clark, scowling. “Don’t use Dick against me. You know I can’t say no to him.”

“You’re gonna have to learn,” Clark said, tugging on Bruce’s hand. “He’ll be a teenager soon.”

“That’s two years away. I have time,” Bruce protested, letting himself be dragged out of bed. Clark, already at the closet, threw a shirt and pants at him. “Besides, he’s a good kid. It’s entirely possible he may not-”

“Wrong,” Clark interjected. “They’re _always_ terrible. Just because _you_ weren’t a normal teenager doesn’t mean your son won’t be.”

“He fights crime on weekends, he isn’t _normal_ ,” Bruce pointed out as they descended the stairs. “I do worry about him having… friends. Supports, who aren’t just adults, but kids his age.”

“Are you suggesting the rest of us take up child sidekicks, too?” Clark asked, amused.

Bruce scoffed. “Because Ollie and Barry would be great with kids.”

“We’d end up calling CPS,” Clark agreed, and he was still laughing as they entered the kitchen. Dick was standing at the stove, Alfred hovering nearby as the kid flipped pancakes.

“Clark!” Dick said, immediately abandoning his spatula to Alfred so that he could run over and give Clark a hug. Bruce fought and failed to repress a smile. “I thought you weren’t gonna be here this morning. I don’t know if we made enough pancakes,” he said with a worried glance back at Alfred.

“Nonsense, Master Dick,” Alfred said cooly, stepping forward to grab Dick by the shoulder and reel him back to the neglected pan. “There will be plenty.”

Clark was at the coffeemaker in less than a half-second, grabbing Bruce’s favorite mug (plain, twelve ounces, black) and pouring out coffee. Bruce watched Dick blink, the boy seemingly trying to figure out how Clark had apparently teleported across the room.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Clark said, having noticed Dick’s bug-eyed stare. “Sometimes I forget to move slowly, when I’m around people who know.” He purposely walked back to Bruce to hand him the coffee, his own hand gripping a Batman mug (Dick’s last Father’s day gift to Bruce - _god_ , that kid was a monster).

“That’s okay!” Dick said a little too enthusiastically, waving the spatula around emphatically. “It’s… cool, I guess,” he amended, trying to smooth over his eagerness.

“Yeah?” Clark said, and he followed Bruce to the table to wait out the pancakes, which were probably going to burn at the rate Dick was ignoring them. Alfred seemed to be rummaging through another drawer to find a second spatula, and Bruce watched his progress with passive interest. “Hey, I don’t suppose you’d like to go flying sometime?”

There was a loud clatter as something metal hit the floor; Bruce’s gaze snapped to Dick, who was standing so completely still it was almost surreal. Bruce wished he could get Robin to sit like that while on a stakeout. It would make his evenings so much easier.

“Go flying with you?” Dick whispered, a blush beginning to creep over his cheeks.

Clark was smiling politely, and Bruce suspected he was the only one who could see underneath the expression: Clark was only barely holding back laughter. “If you want. And if Bruce is okay wth it, of course.” Clark shot Bruce a genuine grin at that, face lit up with mirth.

“I don’t know, Dick,” Bruce said, playing along, “I trust you, Clark, but your job can be dangerous. Dick doesn’t need to get involved in that.”

“I’ll never forgive you,” Dick finally said, breaking free of his momentary paralysis to give Bruce a glare that was almost as good as the Bat’s. “ _Ever_.”

“Well, I suppose you’ll just have to make an exception then, sir,” Alfred said blandly, setting a heaping plate of pancakes down on the table, perfectly cooked.

“Seems so, Alfred,” Bruce drawled as he watched Clark set on the pancakes like he hadn’t eaten in days. “All right, Dick, the next time Clark isn’t busy, you can go.”

“Oh my god,” Dick breathed, “this is _awesome_.”

Bruce smiled across the table at Clark, pulling a couple pancakes onto his own plate - he’d lost nearly five pounds over the last two weeks from stress, and could stand to eat a few more empty calories than usual. “Don’t make it weird, Dick,” he teased, waving the kid over to the table. “Come eat some breakfast.”

And it was some tableau they made - Superman, Batman, Robin, and the Wayne family butler, making Saturday morning pancakes together. Almost like a real family. Bruce smiled and nodded as Dick started to tell Clark all about what was going on at school, trying to push down the feeling that had settled in his stomach - that it was all much too good to last.

#

The weekend went by in a haze of lazy sex and the fluorescent lights of the Batcave, and Bruce woke up Monday morning feeling shockingly well-rested, considering it was only 11:00. Clark had left hours before for work at the _Planet_ , and Bruce wondered how his day must be going, having to sit across from Lois.

Her warning still echoed in his ears, but Bruce wasn’t really concerned - nobody had made the connection between Batman and Bruce Wayne before.

Well, nobody besides Hugo Strange.

Bruce rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the intel he’d collected while Clark had been off signing a lease for an apartment and saving villages from wildfires - or, rather, the lack of intel. Gordon hadn’t come across any of the mystery drug, and he reported that nobody on the force had seen anything out of the ordinary in the criminals they captured. If it was truly out of circulation, there was a good chance any people who had been exposed to the drug had gone through their withdrawals and moved on with their lives. It probably wasn’t anything to be concerned about - just the paranoia of the Roman, only increasing in his old age. 

Bruce rolled out of bed and stumbled into the shower, letting his thoughts wander off to slightly more pleasant avenues. He had meetings until three, but after, maybe he’d drop by the _Planet_ offices, take Clark out to dinner somewhere where discretion would be assured. He knew that Clark was right, regarding moving in right away, but that didn’t mean Bruce didn’t still want to date him as _Bruce_ , not just as Batman. Casual workplace flirting and a dinner or two, disguised as interviews, could be a good foundation for the eventual formal courtship that always seemed to be required of the rich.

He wanted Clark involved in all parts of his life. He wanted to be able to stop by the _Planet_ and surprise him after work, or take him to the Caribbean (with a likely side trip to Santa Prisca), or have him on his arm at a party, so he and Clark could laugh about the wealthy behind their backs.

God, Bruce thought with a shudder, Clark was turning him _domestic_. He picked out his tie with care, remembering the night he’d dropped in on the _Planet_ offices, so desperate to see Clark he took to eavesdropping on Wally’s conversations with him just to find an excuse to go. He’d worn a charcoal-gray Zegna that night, and he knew Clark had an eidetic memory. He grabbed the Zegna, tying it in a careless four-hand knot - Bruce preferred a half-Windsor, but Brucie was sloppy, too rich to care. 

He was careful to avoid Alfred (who was busy in the gardens) on his way out, mostly because he didn’t want to deal with difficult questions. He knew they were coming - questions about _why_ and _how long_ and _can you promise you won’t run again_. Alfred had a way of cutting through Bruce with a sometimes surgical precision, and Bruce wanted to put off the interrogation for as long as possible. Running from his problems - that was Bruce’s specialty.

#

Work seemed to drag by even more slowly than usual, and Bruce kept thinking about all the other things he could be doing in the Cave, or in Metropolis, if only he didn’t have to run a multi-billion dollar company. Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like to just leave his life as Bruce behind, take up the mantle of Batman full-time. But like every time before, he thought immediately of Dick, of Alfred - of Clark - and knew how absurd that particular daydream really was.

He also knew there was a darkness that rested in Batman - deep within himself. And if he let it take over - if he became that darkness, entirely - there would be nothing left for the light to hold on to.

So he smiled and nodded at the German investors who were interested in Wayne Tech’s new solar panels, pretending like he’d been listening to them, like he hadn’t been thinking of improvements to the Batsuit’s cowl so that it would be less difficult to kiss with it on.

Bruce dipped out of his last meeting early so he could skip the worst of the intercity traffic. He could have taken the helicopter - Lex, the previous owner of the building, had installed a helipad for seemingly no reason other than he was rich enough to do so - but Bruce wanted to collect himself before he had to face _her_.

Lois.

It had occurred to Bruce, as he half-listened to Lucius summarize the morning’s board meeting, that she was certainly smart enough to make the connection between Bruce Wayne and Batman, if he started seeing Clark publicly. Luckily for Bruce, Batman was just crazy enough that it wouldn’t look too suspicious if his and Superman’s relationship ended after only a few short months. Then, Bruce Wayne would be there to pick up the pieces of what was left of Clark after two relationships apparently came to an end in quick succession.

It was a good plan - and it wasn’t as if Lois would have any trouble believing it. She already thought Batman some sort of monster, absent of any morals. Which, he supposed, he probably was.

Worth it.

Bruce pulled up to the _Planet_ building and flipped his keys casually to the valet, who was staring at the car like it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. All things considered, it probably was: a sleek Bugatti Chiron, its black finish gleaming in the late afternoon lights of the city, it looked entirely out of place. Then again, cars had always been Bruce’s biggest material weakness; the Batmobile was evidence of that.

Bruce noticed the amount of stares he was getting as he sailed past security and called an elevator to take him to the 20th floor, trying to remember if he’d ever actually visited these offices before as Bruce Wayne. The acquisition had been fairly recent - it had maybe only been six months since he bought the place, in a real estate move that had taken too much finesse for comfort. LexCorp had been strangely unwilling to part with the _Planet_ until Lex’s latest brush with the law had threatened the company’s stock.

“Mr. Wayne!” a receptionist nearly shouted as he got off the elevator on Perry White’s floor - which, incidentally, was Clark’s floor as well. “We weren’t expecting you!” The receptionist shoved his glasses back up against his nose, and Bruce was immediately reminded of Clark.

“I can’t come by and see how my favorite newspaper is doing?” Bruce teased in full playboy mode, and the receptionist blushed.

“Oh, I mean, I’m sorry, sir-” he stammered, and Bruce laughed.

“No need to get all flustered over me. Now, where’s the editor - what’s his name again? Percy something?”

“Perry White, sir,” the receptionist said, glancing down at something on the desk. “He’s in a meeting right now, sir, but I’m sure if I just call in-”

“No, don’t disturb him,” Bruce said with a casual wave of his hand. “I’ll just mill around for a while, check out how everything works. I’ve never been to a news room before!”

The receptionist nodded, clearly trying to figure out how to proceed. “Sure, sir. I could get someone to show you around?”

Bruce beamed. “Oh, that would be fantastic. You know, I read a great article the other day, about Superman? Who’s the reporter who does those ones? I know we’ve met a few times, but I can never seem to remember his name.”

“Kent?” the man said, surprised. “You want to see Kent?”

“Yes, that was it,” Bruce said, nodding seriously. “Is he here today?”

“Well, yes, but if you wanted, _I_ could-”

Bruce cut across him, patience beginning to wear a little. “No, I think I’d like him best,” he said, injecting just enough suggestion into the sentence to get his point across.

“Of course, sir,” the receptionist grumbled, turning away. “I’ll call him over.” He picked up the phone and typed in an extension. “Yeah, Kent? Mr. Wayne is here and he asked for you. Yes,” he said, exasperation leaking into his tone, “ _you_ , Kent. Now come up here.”

Bruce leaned against the receptionist’s desk, picking up a paperweight and idly toying with it. It was a miniature replica of the globe that rested on top of the _Planet_. How depressingly predictable.

“Mr. Wayne,” came Clark’s voice from his left. Bruce plastered his most insincere grin on his face and turned to see Clark standing there in the same clothes he’d left in that morning - the pants that he’d worn the day before, and a shirt of Bruce’s that was just a _little_ too tight, but god, did Gucci look good on him.

“Mr. Kent, please. Call me Bruce.”

“Well then, Bruce, I guess you can call me Clark.”

Bruce’s grin softened then, became something a little more real. He was acutely aware of the receptionist, however, so held out one arm and said, “All right then, Clark, why don’t you show me around these lovely offices of yours? And please, tell me _everything_ about Superman. I’ve heard you even know him!”

Clark’s eyes flashed a warning before they flicked down towards the ground. He appeared almost to hunch in on himself, somehow making him seem very far removed from the physical perfection of Superman. For all that Bruce was an excellent disguise artist, he would never understand the way Clark was able to fool so many people with just a simple change of posture and a pair of glasses.

“We’ve met once or twice,” Clark mumbled as he began to lead Bruce through the rows of cubicles. Bruce listened patiently as Clark pointed out the different desks, where clusters of reporters were madly typing in an effort to reach their deadlines on time. Clark skillfully navigated them away from Cat Grant - a wise choice, all things considered. Bruce had only met her twice, and both times had been deeply unpleasant, Cat all false smiles and grabs at his trust fund.

“And that there is my desk,” Clark said when they were still a fair distance away from the small block that also housed Lois.

“Where’s your partner?” Bruce asked, noticing a cup of hot coffee on Lois’s desk - but no Lois.

Clark swallowed and shuffled his feet, for a second looking so much like his civilian identity that Bruce himself almost believed this man could not _possibly_ be Superman. “She, ah, she stepped out for a minute. I’ve been out of the office most of the day, chasing down stories.”

Translation: she hadn’t had to see much of him because of Superman business, but he arrived recently and seeing him upset her. She left to gather herself so she wouldn’t lose it in front of her peers.

Women were complicated.

“I see,” Bruce said, walking over to Clark’s desk despite the warning glare thrown in his direction. “What are you working on?” he asked, perching on Lois’s desk before glancing down next to Clark’s computer and bending over to inspect a legal pad.

“Nothing much,” Clark said uncomfortably as Bruce shifted a few papers out of the way so he could see the pad better.

_Privatizing Arkham? - Lex Luthor seeks to slash funding to non-celebrity cases, outsource mental health care._

“Seems interesting,” Bruce said sarcastically, wondering why he hadn’t heard about it yet. Had he been so preoccupied he’d missed this going on right under his nose?

“If you find gross miscarriage of justice interesting, Mr. Wayne, then I suppose it is.”

Bruce glanced at him, grinning in true playboy fashion. “Now, didn’t I tell you to call me Bruce?”

“My mistake,” Clark said, flashing him an easy smile and taking a step closer. They were less than a meter apart now, and Clark reached out a hand to gently remove the legal pad from the desk. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t find any of that interesting, Mr. Wayne. I know how much billionaires like to jump through loopholes in the law.”

Bruce plastered a leer on his face and inched closer - their noses were maybe a foot from each other. “Well, I’m sure we could find a time to meet and you can tell me all about these holes.”

“Oh, hi, Mr. Wayne,” came a voice from next to them, and Bruce and Clark stepped back instinctively, putting a safe three feet or so in between them.

“Miss Lane,” Bruce said, turning to find Lois staring at Clark with wide, red-rimmed eyes. “So nice to see you again.”

“Charmed,” she said, turning that piercing gaze on Bruce, which made him feel suddenly very vulnerable. “It’s been too long, Mr. Wayne.”

“Please, call me Bruce,” he said, but it lacked all its usual flirtatiousness. He was still too off-balance from her sudden appearance to perform Brucie.

Lois smiled, but the expression wasn’t kind - more pained, tinged with a hint of anger. “I’d prefer not to,” she said. “Now please, Mr. Wayne, could you get off my desk? I have work to do.”

“Of course, Miss Lane,” Bruce said, stepping aside and turning his back to her. “Now, Kent, you do such an excellent job interviewing Superman. I was wondering if you might be willing to interview me.”

Clark’s eyes narrowed. “Interview you?”

“Sure,” Bruce said, the playboy smile making a reappearance, but not without substantial difficulty. “Over dinner, tonight. Sage. My treat.”

Clark glanced down nervously at Lois, who must have given him some invisible go-ahead, because he said, “Sure, Mr. Wayne, I suppose I could do that.”

“Excellent,” Bruce said, reaching out to clap Clark on the shoulder; he let his hand linger. “I just have a meeting with my man Perry, and then we can go.”

“Oh, you don’t have a, uh, reservation?” Clark spluttered.

“I’m Bruce Wayne. I never need a reservation.” He grinned broadly at Clark, winked flirtatiously at Lois (which felt _wrong_ ), and strode over to Perry’s office, racking his brain for any reason why Bruce Wayne might have felt the need to stop by.


	6. she knows (they always know)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to properly get in the mood for the amount of angsty batman in this chapter, i highly recommend listening to the fray, or other such bands 
> 
> i was texting my friend, who's like the biggest DC fan I know, about this fic and he wrote back, "it must be so much fun to write bruce. he's just, like, a super-angsty teenager caught in the body of a thirty year old man who could kill someone with his finger" 
> 
> things escalated from there

“You know, you keep coming by the _Planet_ like that, someone’s gonna notice,” Clark said, sliding up behind Bruce and kissing the nape of his neck before sliding his hands over the Batsuit’s breastplate, gently tracing the contours of the bat symbol.

Bruce hummed, turning to return the kiss. “Maybe I want them to.”

“You don’t mean that,” Clark said, stepping back, breaking the spell. “Your whole schtick rests on you being the irresistible playboy of Gotham.”

Bruce shrugged casually, pulling the cowl on to hide his face. “Things change. People change.”

“Bruce-”

“We have monitor duty, don’t we?” Bruce interjected. “We don’t want to give Barry a reason to think it’s okay to be late.”

“Yeah,” Clark said quietly, brushing his hair back from his face. “Let’s go.”

They exited the Watchtower workout room that had served them well once and had done so again. There was something surprisingly hot about it, Bruce thought - having sex on the Watchtower. He’d disabled the security cameras this time, aware that his previous slip could have caused a very embarrassing incident for the two of them, had anyone been diligent enough to scan through all the feeds. Bruce unconsciously matched his stride to Clark’s as they walked down a hallway that led in the general direction of the heart of the Tower, absently marveling at the fact that Clark could dress in such a brightly-colored suit and still look menacing to criminals. Then again, Bruce thought, Gotham certainly had a different class of criminal than Metropolis. That much had always been clear.

“So tell me more about Luthor’s plans to privatize Arkham,” Bruce said as they turned down another corridor. “I haven’t heard any news of it.”

“That’s because it’s not really news yet,” Clark said, shrugging. “I’d been doing some routine digging into Luthor’s finances - I try to check in on him once a month or so to make sure there’s nothing too shady going on - and I ran into a subdivision of LexCorp I hadn’t seen before, called Luthealth. It seemed to be very new, just a skeleton structure, no funding yet that I can find.”

“Health care,” Bruce said with a twist of his lips. “That’s likely.”

“Exactly what I thought,” Clark said as they rounded the last corner into the monitor room. Barry jumped up from his chair, Diana slow to rise behind him.

“You guys are two minutes late,” Barry complained, practically vibrating with pent-up energy. “Like, I know you like your alone time, but c’mon! You were on the Tower an hour ago! Seriously, Bats, you’re slipping,” he said, disappearing and reappearing next to Bruce, clapping his shoulder. “No hard feelings, though. I know love can do that to ya.”

Both Bruce and Clark froze in place, staring dumbly at Barry. “What?” Bruce ground out in his most menacing Batman voice.

“C’mon, Bruce, we haven’t seen you up here more than once in the past month. If it hasn’t been a case taking up your time - and I’ve never known you to take so long on a case, let’s be honest - then it’s gotta be someone special.”

Diana laughed from where she stood next to the monitors. “Barry is convinced. He won’t believe me when I tell him Bruce Wayne will settle down for no woman.”

 _That’s for sure_ , Bruce thought, biting back a sarcastic remark. “You should listen to Diana more often,” he said to Barry, who was frowning as though disappointed in Bruce.

“I’ll get the truth out of you somehow, Bats, you’ll see,” Barry said before disappearing with a rush of wind.

Bruce carefully didn’t look at Clark as he moved forward to take over Diana’s seat. “Any news?”

“Some strange readings out of the Atlantic off the eastern seaboard of Florida, but nothing that warrants concern,” Diana said. “Arthur said he would look into it.”

Clark nodded. “Thanks for staying late for us, Di.”

“It was two minutes,” Diana said, flashing them a confused smile. “I assume you had a good reason for it.”

“We did,” Clark said. Sometimes, Bruce wanted to hit him.

Diana glanced briefly between the two of them as if waiting for one or the other to explain, but when neither offered up any information, she shrugged and turned away. “Call if you need me.”

“No big plans tonight?” Clark asked, flipping absently to the Florida news feeds, which showed nothing unusual.

Diana’s mouth twisted up in a bitter smile. “No. And there is no need to remind me.”

Clark laughed, but the sound wasn’t unkind. “Night, Di. We’ll let you know if we need you.”

Diana left the room, and before long, they were alone on the Watchtower. “So, heath care,” Bruce prompted after several minutes of silence.

“Yes,” Clark said, startled out of the silence, “but like I said, the research I turned up was all on Arkham. How much was being spent on prisoners - on _certain_ prisoners, and intel on the government contracts that are used to build things to contain rogues. Schematics for hiring for a private mental hospital, information on the best doctors in the region. I worry that he’ll just use the patients to his advantage.”

“Not like it hasn’t happened before,” Bruce said. “Someone using patients. You know how many psychologists we’ve had in Arkham who’ve ended up abusing people for their own use, just because those people weren’t mentally there enough to speak up about it.”

“God, B,” Clark said, chuckling, “d’you ever just… _look_ at our line of work and wonder?”

Bruce leaned back in his chair. “Wonder what?”

“How we got here.”

_What made you like this, Batman? What trauma drove you to this?_

When Bruce was silent, Clark pressed on. “Do you ever wonder what you could have been, if that one night hadn’t happened?”

And, for a moment, Bruce saw it stretched before him: a different universe, where he and his parents had stayed at the theater, where his father had been a little more wary to walk down Crime Alley at night. A world without pearls scattered on the ground, without his parents bleeding out as he knelt, speechless, beside them. A world where Bruce grew up with the guidance of his father, the love of his mother; where he did normal things a billionaire did - take up a position in his family’s company, marry a beautiful woman, have a family.

A world without long years spent training his body into a killing machine, into an instrument to be used, littered with the scars of his mistakes; a world without rage and vengeance to haunt his dreams and drive him to the Bat.

A world where he would never have reason to meet a man dressed in tights and a cape, floating above the Gotham night, bringing a shred of light to a man who had been immersed in darkness for too long.

A world without Clark.

“No,” Bruce said at last. “It’s a waste of energy to think about what could have been.”

“But you would never have had to become Batman. You could have lived a normal life.”

Bruce laughed, removing his cowl and running a hand through his flattened hair. “ _Normal_. Maybe. But Batman is a part of me, as is Gotham. The Bat didn’t stem from my parents’ deaths. Responsibility for Batman belongs to my city.”

Clark frowned and shook his head, but Bruce held up a hand.

“You spent your childhood in Smallville, the definition of small town American living. Gotham is different. Growing up in Gotham is like growing up in a war zone, both physically and psychologically. Even before the Batman drove the more colorful characters out of the woodwork, the mob had always ruled the city.You couldn’t go anywhere in the city without feeling like you were being watched, or like they were listening in. Because they _were_ ,” Bruce added, staring thoughtfully out the massive windows. “The whole police department was corrupt - only a few good men here and there. Gordon, for one. People lived in a perpetual state of fear. Good men looked over their shoulders everywhere they went. Well, except my father,” Bruce amended. “He always had too much trust in people. Spent his entire life and his fortune trying to save the city, and all it did was kill him.

“Every day in Gotham, good people are killed in muggings. My parents were just two more victims of that violence. It’s everywhere, seeping into the very stone of the city, like a fungus. But I had always seemed so far removed from it, in the palisades. It was as if I only saw Gotham through my father’s eyes. He was a doctor. And he saw it as a living, breathing organism, albeit diseased - but you can _cure_ a disease.So when my parents were killed, I promised them that I would rid Gotham of the evil that took their lives. But the more I fight, the more times I lock up the Roman, or the Joker, only for them to get off or escape - the more I wonder if it’s not impossible. And if it is, why I continue to fight.”

Bruce took a deep breath and turned back to look at Clark. He was silent, leaning forward expectantly, like he was truly _listening_ , like he really cared. “Every resident of Gotham is a little bit crazy, to continue living there,” Bruce continued. “Between the routine dousing of the city in toxins, the bombings, the wild rampages by madmen, they continue. They _endure_. Because that’s what it is, to be from Gotham. It’s to know that what you’re doing isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference, but to keep doing it anyways. It’s to get up, every day, and know that today could be the day you are stuck in the train that gets held hostage, the bank that gets held up by a squad of armed men, the plane that gets hijacked by some escaped Arkham inmate - it’s to get up and go to on anyways.

“I’m not so foolish to think that I’m somehow exempt from that collective insanity. For my part, it’s knowing that no matter what, the evil will never truly be eliminated. It will continue to return, like a virus. But if I admit that - if I admit that Gotham cannot be cured, and I continue to fight anyways - then I am just as crazy as the Joker. So I tell myself, year after year - perhaps _this_ is it. Perhaps _this_ is when you get to hang up the cape, find yourself a wife, and live a normal life. But I know that the Batman is more than that. He’s always been there.

“So no, Clark. I don’t think about some world in which I never had to become the Batman. Because without him, I have no idea who I am.”

Clark opened his mouth to respond, but appeared to be at a loss for words. He slowly closed it, eyes softening perceptibly. The look was so tender it made Bruce uncomfortable. “You’re more than Batman, Bruce. You have _always_ been more than that.”

Bruce huffed. “What about you, then? Do you think about what you lost?”

Clark’s face fell, and Bruce saw it there - the familiar pain in the lines of his face. The knowledge, crushing and absolute, that he was alone in the universe, the last son of Krypton stranded in orbit around a foreign star. “All the time,” he said.

“Do you wish it had happened differently?”

Clark responded so quickly it surprised Bruce. “No. Not anymore.”

“You lost everything.”

“No, I didn’t,” Clark said. “Well - yes, of course I did - but I was just an infant when my planet was destroyed. There’s nothing for me to miss. Being sent here, though, growing up on this planet, among humanity….” Clark leaned forward across the desk and grasped Bruce’s hand. He could feel the heat of Clark’s skin through the leather. “Krypton was advanced, yes, but humanity is so much _more_. Ma and Pa took me in even though they found me in a _spaceship_ , they stayed with me even when I lifted a tractor above my head two days after my seventh birthday, even when I found out I could _fly_. Humanity’s capacity for tolerance, for _love_ , is astounding. Every day, I see something that surprises me, something where I find myself thinking, _thank god I grew up here._ The fact that I can be here, that I can do what I do, protect this planet and call it my own… of course I feel like an outsider. All the time,” he said, laughing. “Kinda hard not to when you’re strong enough to punch through steel. But then, just when I felt lost, when I thought I couldn’t possibly do this hero thing and not feel alienated from the very people I was trying to protect, I met someone who reminded me of why I became Superman in the first place.”

“Lois,” Bruce said automatically, nodding. It was an old pain, familiar - she had served as his tether, his touchstone with humanity, for as long as Bruce had known him.

“No,” Clark said, inching his chair closer to Bruce’s until their knees were touching. Neither of them were paying any attention at all to the monitors, and Bruce was only slightly comforted by the fact that a klaxon would sound if anything dire happened that needed immediate action.

“No,” Clark repeated, a small, private smile gracing his face. “It was this idiot, crouched six hundred feet above the ground on a gargoyle jutting from Wayne Tower, dressed up like a giant bat. And even though he was kind of a dick and I thought he might have a bit of a death wish, I came back. And I always will.”

And before Bruce could object, remind Clark that they were _working_ , Clark leaned forward for a kiss.

They stayed like that, pressed together for several long moments, neither making a move to deepen the kiss, both satisfied at just being close. A small voice in the back of Bruce’s mind was yelling at him to pull away, reestablish professional boundaries, before they let this become some sort of regular thing, before something -

“Clark? _Bruce_?”

\- happened. 

“Diana!” Clark said, suddenly five feet away from Bruce and on his feet. “We, uh, didn’t hear you come up.”

Diana was frozen in place, mouth slightly agape and eyes flicking furiously between the two of them. “I needed a pair of heels that I left up here the last time I went undercover,” she said in a voice that sounded ominously automatic, growing quieter and more frightening towards the end. And then, as if she had been snapped out of a daze, her face clouded over and her hands twitched like she wanted to reach for her sword.

“Does Lois know?” she asked in a voice so quiet Bruce could have imagined it. 

Clark’s face fell, and Bruce stood slowly, deliberately, ready to intervene if she actually decided to hit someone. “She knows,” Bruce said.

Diana made a strangled sound, half-indignant, half-hurt. “And she’s, what, _okay_ with it?”

“Di,” Clark started, stepping forward, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “Just - just listen, all right?”

Diana grabbed Clark’s left hand. “You didn’t,” she growled. Bruce had never heard her sound so betrayed.

“I had no choice,” Clark said quietly, pulling his hand out of her grip. “You don’t understand.”

“No, you’re right,” Diana said, voice gone cold. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand how _either_ of you could do this. How long has this been going on?”

Clark looked away guiltily. “It started just after I got injured in Los Angeles. The battle at the Santa Monica Pier.”

Bruce watched in a sort of detached fascination as she mentally counted back the weeks. “Months,” she spat. “ _Months_. When did you tell her?”

Clark closed his eyes. “A little over a week ago.”

Diana staggered slightly, running a hand through her hair, looking around as if she would find an explanation hiding in a corner somewhere. “And you?” she nearly shouted, finally rounding on Bruce. “How could you? Lois is - she is _family_!” She shouted something in Ancient Greek that was too quick for Bruce to translate accurately, but it sounded something like, _don’t you have a heart?_

“Please, Diana, please don’t tell anyone else. We aren’t ready for people to know.”

“Now you are asking me for _favors_?!” she said, voice reaching a dangerously high pitch. Sometimes she was so deceptively gentle Bruce nearly forgot the insane amount of power she truly did hold. “How _dare_ you? She is my _friend_!”

“Diana, I haven’t even told Ma yet! I need you to calm down.”

The shift in her demeanor was genuinely frightening; she went completely still, and there was a perceptible aura of anger around her, such that Bruce wondered if it was not actually tangible. “Calm down?” she asked quietly. “You _men._ You are all the same. You take, and take, and when it is not enough, you burn entire villages to the ground just to get at what you want. And when you do, and people become upset, you say it is _their_ fault. No. No, I cannot listen to this tonight.” She turned to leave.

“Diana, wait,” Bruce said, stretching out a hand in supplication. “Please. You know us. You know that’s not who we are.”

Diana stopped short, and twisted her torso to look behind her at Bruce. “Yes,” she said, but her voice was no longer angry - rather, it betrayed a deep sadness, an emotional chasm that spoke of love and loss and the quiet anger of the just. “That is what they all say.”

And she was gone, before either of them had a chance to call her back, before they could apologize, tell her _why_ and _how_ and _we didn’t mean to hurt anyone_.

Bruce looked at Clark, finally realizing what he should have known all along: they didn’t live in a bubble, not anymore, and this was going to be a hell of a lot harder than he’d ever expected.


	7. don't give up on me yet

“Bruce.”

Dick’s voice. Bruce breathed in and out slowly, focusing, trying to block out the sound of Dick’s breathing.

“Bruce,” Dick said again, drawing out the _u_ sound in a way that made Bruce want to cover his ears.

“What,” he ground out, dropping from the handstand he’d been in, dripping sweat onto the mats of one of the Batcave’s gyms.

“Um, I was just….” Dick paused, taking a hesitant step forward as Bruce wiped his face off with a towel. “Are you okay?”

Bruce threw the towel to the side and started in on a salmon ladder. “Fine,” he grunted, moving up to the second rack. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dick said casually, nimbly climbing onto a ledge in the rock about ten feet off the ground. “Maybe it’s that you’ve been holed up down here since Monday and I’m worried that you haven’t seen the sun in three days.”

“I’ve seen it,” Bruce said, reaching the top rung and hanging there for a few seconds, glancing down at Dick. “Once.” He shifted his upper body above the bar, slowly raising his legs until he was once again in a handstand. “Go do your homework, Dick. Don’t worry about me.”

“Well, see,” Dick said, swinging his legs a little as they dangled over the rock ledge, “I’m not gonna do that. You’ve been avoiding everyone, you’re patrolling _ridiculous_ hours, and Clark said he hasn’t actually talked to you in two days.”

“You talked to Clark?” Bruce said, startled out of his pose. He dropped to the ground, appreciating the burn in his muscles and ignoring the slight twinge in his right ankle from an injury the previous night.

Dick jumped off the ledge, grabbed onto a set of rings and swung down to the ground in a graceful, fluid motion. “I texted him to ask when he was free next. He promised to take me to the Fortress, remember?”

“Yes.” He stalked out into the main chamber and headed towards the staircase. “But that doesn’t mean you should be talking to him about me.”

“He was just worried,” Dick protested. “He said he’d been trying to get a hold of you, to talk to you, but that every time he came by you were out.”

When Dick got this way, there were only a certain number of things Bruce could do to shut him down. Choosing the easiest option, which was to avoid and ignore the entire conversation, he started up the stairs.

“No!” Dick said firmly from behind him. Bruce stopped, mildly surprised, and turned to look at his son, standing stubbornly on the bottom step with his arms crossed. “No, you don’t get to do that this time.”

 _Be a fucking parent, Bruce. Engage_. “Do what?”

“Run,” Dick said, starting up the stairs until he was standing directly in front of Bruce. “You always run! You - you find problems, even when they’re not there, and then you make them into some huge thing and you run away from anything that doesn’t fit into your perfectly ordered world!”

Bruce took a deep breath and said, “Dick, the world only makes sense if you force it to. Sometimes, that control is all we have.”

“Until that’s not enough anymore,” Dick said, indignation still fresh and fiery in his eyes, looking much older than his age - for a moment, Bruce glimpsed what Dick might be like when he grew up, and it made him proud. “You can’t control every emotion you have, I don’t care what those ninjas taught you.”

“The League of Shadows,” Bruce corrected automatically.

“Whatever!” Dick shouted, throwing his arms out in frustration. “But loving a person means more than that! It’s - it’s letting go of some of that control in order to have something better. Someone who’s there for you, when nobody else is, someone you can trust to keep all your secrets, someone who you know loves you back. But you can’t have that if you don’t let it in, and you’ve never done anything but try and keep it all out.”

Bruce wanted to yell. Punch a criminal. Base jump. _Anything_. “You think so, Dick? You think that’s what love is? And how would you know?” The words were harsh - so, so cruel, and the irony of the situation was not lost on Bruce. 

And, quite unexpectedly, Dick seemed to shrink, to turn back into something resembling a normal eleven-year old kid. Eyes cast towards the ground, he whispered, “I know, Bruce, because I love you. And it hasn’t been easy. All I want to do sometimes is run away… go back to Haley’s, to my old life. But… after my parents died, you were there for me. When I found out your biggest secret, you didn’t kick me out. You gave me a way to take out my anger and turn it into something good. And I know that some part of you loves me too, even if you never show it. You’re - you’re the closest thing to a dad I’ve got now, and I just want you to be happy, for once.” He glanced up nervously at Bruce, as if expecting an outburst. “You sulk enough as it is.”

It didn’t happen often that Bruce was lost for words, but as he looked down at this kid - his ward, his _son_ \- he knew he would do anything that Dick asked, if only it would bring him joy. “That’s true,” Bruce said at last, crouching down so that his eyes were level with Dick’s and gripping his shoulder. “You know I love you, Dick. Like my own son. And I know I don’t say it enough, and that I’m probably not the nicest person to be around most of the time.”

“You got that right,” Dick muttered under his breath.

“But I need you to know that I’ll do anything to protect you, and that you and Alfred mean the world to me. I’d never let anything happen to you two if I could help it.”

“I know,” Dick said, and it was truly a testament to how much Bruce disliked breaches of his personal space that Dick didn’t try to hug him. “But I think you might need to let Clark know that, too.”

Bruce sighed and straightened up. “Do you want to come on patrol with me tonight?”

“Yes!” Dick said, face lighting up instantly. “Totally!”

“There’s a long time before sundown, so go do your work and eat something,” Bruce said. “If all your homework isn’t done, you don’t get to go out.”

“Okay,” Dick agreed readily, bounding past Bruce up the stairs. “See you in a bit!”

Bruce trudged up the stairs after him, stripping and showering in a way that had become routine over the past few days. Had it only been last weekend that he and Clark had been in this shower together, wrapped up in themselves, oblivious to those around them?

Seeing Diana’s reaction to their relationship had shaken him. Bruce had known Lois would be crushed, had known that they would have explaining to do to others, but he hadn’t thought Diana - who knew them better than anyone else in the League - would be so angry.

And he should talk to Clark. He wanted to see him, maybe apologize, if necessary. Bruce checked his watch as he stepped out of the shower - it was early yet, only 2:30. Clark would be working late due to drama in Washington, and Bruce had enough time to drive to Metropolis and see him, maybe take him for coffee, if he left immediately. He quickly pulled on a suit, threw a tie over his shoulder, and grabbed a pair of shoes before tearing down the stairs.

“Master Bruce,” came Alfred’s voice from a doorway to Bruce’s left. “Going somewhere?”

“Metropolis,” Bruce said, rubbing at a spot on the toe of one of his shoes.

“Shall I bring the car around, sir?” Alfred asked, stepping forward into Bruce’s line of sight.

“Thanks, Alfred, that’d be great.”

Alfred nodded. “Right away, sir.”

They were on the thruway ten minutes later, heading for Metropolis as Bruce struggled to style his hair and fix his tie to a state of studied nonchalance.

“May I ask what inspired you to leave the house today, Master Bruce?” Alfred asked from the front seat.

Bruce glared at him. “I don’t know, Alfred, why on earth could I possibly want to go visit the _Planet_ offices?”

Alfred huffed indignantly. “There is no need to be rude.”

Bruce leaned back in his seat, adjusting his tie one last time. “It was Dick,” he admitted. “He told me Clark had talked to him.”

“Indeed,” Alfred nodded. “Master Clark dropped by for breakfast just this morning.”

“You spoke to him, too?”

“Briefly. He did not even stay long enough to eat,” Alfred added, sounding rather offended.

Bruce shifted, uncomfortably aware how transparent his efforts to avoid Clark had been. “Ah,” was all he could think to say.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred began in a voice that made Bruce edgy - the tone usually indicated Alfred was about to give a lecture on how exactly Bruce’s neuroses were ruining his interpersonal relationships.

“I know, Alfred,” Bruce interrupted before he could get anywhere. “I’m working on it.”

“Of course, sir.”

The car was silent for several minutes, leaving Bruce to think about what Dick had said earlier. Alfred knew Bruce cared about him. There was no reason he needed to clarify that at all, or _remind_ him. Alfred wasn’t a boy, he didn’t need the reassurance.

Then again, Bruce thought, he very rarely considered the emotional needs of others. He was aware of this, but had never made any move to rectify it; rather, it was generally an asset to the Batman, since it gave Bruce good reason to sever unnecessary relationships.

“Alfred,” he began hesitantly, “I know I’m sometimes not the easiest person to work for.”

“Not at all, sir,” Alfred said sardonically. Bruce scowled.

“But I wanted to say that I appreciate everything you do for me, and for Dick. He said some things to me today that reminded me of you and the way you’ve always been there for me, through everything. After my parents, after I disappeared for five years… you’ve helped me more than you know.”

Bruce watched as Alfred’s weathered hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening with the effort. They were nearing the _Planet_ offices now, and Bruce, not really expecting any comment from Alfred, pulled out his phone to make sure no global disasters had happened in the half hour it had taken to get to Metropolis.

“Master Bruce, with all due respect,” Alfred said, and Bruce looked up, startled. “Each night, you leave your perfectly lovely house and go leaping off buildings dressed as a giant bat. Do you honestly think I _helped_ you?”

Bruce laughed. “More than you know, Alfred. More than you know.”

Alfred pulled up in front of the _Planet_ building, but made no move to exit the car and open Bruce’s door. His face was turned away, out the driver’s side window, and Bruce suspected he was slightly emotional, hence the hesitance. “Will you be long, sir?”

Bruce realized he hadn’t thought of an excuse to visit, and cast around for a reason Bruce Wayne would want to see Clark Kent at 3:30 in the afternoon. He pulled out his phone and sent a text to Clark.

_B: Busy?_

Clark responded less than ten seconds later.

_C: No omg please save me_

Bruce smiled and put his phone back in his pocket. “Not too long, Alfred.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll just be out here, working on design plans for the Batwing, then, shall I?”

“You know, I did have an idea about replacing the anti-ballistics-”

Alfred interrupted, looking rankled. “Master Bruce, I sincerely hope-”

“Right, right. I’m leaving,” Bruce sighed, exiting the car and straightening his tie and jacket. The woman at the reception desk smiled broadly at him, but he ignored her and made straight for the elevators.

Clark’s floor in the _Planet_ was less busy than usual; it seemed that many people had taken late lunches in order to work through dinner on evening deadlines. Clark was at his desk, looking miserably at his notes, Cat and Lois talking animatedly in the cubicle next to him.

“Ladies,” Bruce said when he got close enough, and Cat’s head whipped around to him, eyes widening with excitement. “You are looking just _fantastic_ today.”

“Oh, Mr. Wayne,” Cat stammered, holding a hand to her heart. “You just know how to make a woman feel special, don’t you?”

“Hm,” Bruce said, looking at Clark for support. “Kant, is she mocking me?”

“Not at all, Mr. Wayne,” Clark said with a slight upturn of his lips. “And it’s Kent, sir.”

“Well, I think I’ve told you to call me Bruce, so you’re really one to talk,” Bruce said before looking back at the two women. Surprisingly, Lois was staring at him with narrowed eyes, hand clenched tight around a notepad and a pen that looked as if it might snap. He pressed on anyways. “Now, you two wouldn’t mind if I stole Kent for just a little bit? We were interrupted during our last interview, and I want to make sure he gets his story,” he said, placing a very suggestive emphasis on _story_. Clark blushed furiously, shoving a legal pad into his messenger bag.

“Of course not, Bruce,” Cat said, eyes flirtatious but body posture intensely calculated.

“See, Kent, she gets it,” Bruce said, leaning in just a little as if he was reciprocating the flirting. “And you, Miss Lane? Mind if I steal him for a bit?”

Lois’ facade cracked just slightly, and for a moment, Bruce saw raw pain there, accompanied by cold understanding. The emotions were ones Bruce recognized; it was the feeling he himself got when he’d finally cracked a case, but only after he was too late to save the victim.

Then her face was placid again, so quickly that Bruce might have thought he’d imagined it, if he was anyone other than the Batman.

“Of course,” she said, smiling and waving Clark towards Bruce. “Go on, bring me back a red eye.”

Clark nodded, smiling gently at Lois. “Cat, anything?”

“Triple grande skinny caramel latte,” Cat said rapid-fire, eyes still glued to her phone. 

“Comin’ right up,” Bruce said before he stepped aside to let Clark lead the way down the stairs to the artisanal roastery on the corner. They got their coffee and sat down at a semi-secluded table in the corner, doing their best to get away from inquisitive eyes.

“So, not that I have a problem with coming to your rescue, but why did you need saving?” Bruce asked instead of apologizing, and was relieved when Clark answered right away.

“Ah, Lois was assigned a story two days ago that she… doesn’t think is worth her time, considering the fact that she’s already assigned to both Anatolia and the Middle East.”

“Yeah, what’s the story?” Bruce asked, taking a sip of his coffee. It was good.

Clark swallowed uncomfortably. “She was asked by Perry to do a piece for the gossip column. ‘Bruce Wayne’s New Squeeze,’ type thing.”

Bruce blinked, his discomfort deepening. “Oh. Well, it isn’t like I have one, so….”

“You haven’t exactly been your old self,” Clark pointed out. “You haven’t been seen out with a woman in three months.”

God, had it really been that long? Bruce hadn’t missed them at all. “Well, even Bruce Wayne can take breaks,” he said casually, knowing as he did that the words were patently false. Clark raised his eyebrows like he knew exactly what Bruce was thinking.

“She doesn’t know anything yet, but I thought you should have it on your radar.”

Bruce nodded and stared down at his cup. “I’m sorry,” he said, forcing the words out, knowing that if he waited any longer to say them they would likely never be said at all.

“I know,” Clark whispered. “I forgive you. It was a lot.”

“I should’ve been there with you.”

“Yes,” said Clark, nodding, “but you will be next time.”

“Come by the house tonight, after patrol?”

Clark smiled, and it made Bruce’s breath catch just like the very first time. “Always, B. You know that.”

“Good,” Bruce said. “Now, let’s get their drinks and get out of here. I’ve seen at least two cameras pointed towards us, and Alfred is waiting in the car.”

“All right,” Clark laughed.

They brought the coffees back to Cat and Lois, who were dutifully working on a piece, Cat having moved her base of operations onto the corner of Lois’ desk. “Thanks, Bruce,” Cat purred when Bruce passed her her drink.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Bruce cooed right back, winking salaciously at Lois, who returned his advance with a stony face even more indecipherable than the one she’d been sporting earlier. Bruce set her drink on her desk, uncomfortable with his own inability to read her.

“Get everything you needed?” Bruce asked, turning back to Clark with another wide, flirtatious grin.

“I think so,” Clark said, perusing the fake notes he’d drawn up. “I’ll call you if I need you for anything else.”

“ _Please_ do,” Bruce said, taking not a small amount of pride at the way Clark’s face flushed from his neck all the way to his hairline. “Bye, girls,” he whispered, tossing a fop’s smile at them before heading to the elevator. He was just about to step on when he heard a very unwelcome voice coming from the hallway by the elevators.

“Now, Perry, let’s sit down and talk about this,” Lex Luthor said, and Bruce disappeared into a nearly nonexistent shadow in a small nook behind a potted palm. “I understand that you think you need to maintain some sort of journalistic integrity-”

“We do need to maintain it,” Perry said, rounding the corner with Lex and coming to a stop less than fifteen feet away from Bruce’s position. “A free and independent press is essential, Luthor. You know that.”

“That didn’t seem nearly as important to you a year ago, before the buyout,” Lex said. “You owe me a favor, Perry. I want this gone.”

“Mr. Kent is one of our most tenacious reporters,” Perry said, looking uncomfortable. “He doesn’t look it, but the man does some extremely good investigative work. It will be nearly impossible for me to tell him to drop the case.”

Lex took a step closer to Perry, invading his space in a subtle play for power. “I expect you’ll find some way to make it work.”

“You have no sway here, Luthor,” Perry said stubbornly. Bruce was almost proud of him. “No way to ruin myself or this paper without damaging your own reputation.”

“I don’t need to ruin this paper. You were the one who buried stories in exchange for corporate cash. I think that’ll be more than enough to make the headlines of the _Times_ or the _Post_ , don’t you?”

Perry said nothing, suddenly looking much older than he was. “Okay, Luthor,” he said. “I’ll try. Now get the hell out of my building.”

“Good man,” Lex said, clapping him on the shoulder before stepping into the elevator. “I’ll be following up.”

Perry frowned at him, silent as the door closed, then grumbled, “I’m sure you will. Asshole.” He left the foyer area, presumably heading back to his office.

Bruce slipped out from behind the palm, forcing himself to head slowly for the stairs.


	8. we're fine, we're fine, we're fine

The lights of Gotham were dulled by a fine drizzle of rain, the entire city appearing to fold in upon itself, dissolving in a haze of orange, blue, and green. Batman and Robin stood at the top of a small tenement in the east side of town, one heavily favoring his left leg, the other pacing relentlessly with nervous energy.

“Bruce?”

Batman sighed and leaned heavily on a water tower, suddenly feeling very tired. “How many times have I told you, only code names when in costume?”

“Sorry,” Dick said, not sounding very sorry at all. “Are you okay?”

What could he say to that? Bruce had gone home immediately after overhearing the conversation between Perry and Luthor. It was no surprise that Lex wanted his company out of the media - Clark had an uncanny ability to seek out and expose massive scandals within companies, and he’d ended the careers of quite a few Fortune 500 CEOs. Bruce remembered the notepad he’d seen at the _Planet_ offices on Clark’s desk days before - _Privatizing Arkham? - Lex Luthor seeks to slash funding to non-celebrity cases, outsource mental health care._ He couldn’t help but shake the feeling that this was somehow, impossibly, connected to what he and Robin had witnessed at the pier. A sort of quiet, organized crime was Lex’s specialty, and strange drugs and scared mob bosses reeked of his involvement. But why would Lex want to privatize Arkham, or even Blackgate? What could be gained by being in control of the facilities, besides being responsible for breakouts? What was he missing?

Bruce had pried into Lex’s financial records, but apart from the shell company, he had apparently done a fair job of covering his tracks. Whatever was going on, there was no way Bruce was letting Clark handle it on his own, not if Arkham was involved. Gotham was Batman’s, and it would stay that way. Maybe hacking LexCorp’s security cameras would yield a lead.

“Bruce?” Dick repeated again, more quietly this time, bringing Bruce back to the rooftop. What could he say? This was his son - he didn’t need to be burdened with Bruce’s problems, and he didn’t need to know about the LexCorp case until Bruce was certain of what was going on.

“I’m fine, Dick. We’ve been out here long enough, we should head back to the Cave.”

“You can talk to me about it,” Dick said eagerly as Bruce dove over the edge of the building, dropping six stories to the Batmobile below with the help of a grapnel. Distracted, he deployed it too late, and the line snapped just as he reached the bottom of the fall. Landing hard on his already sprained right ankle, Bruce cursed as Dick touched down elegantly beside him, grapnel perfectly intact.

“No,” Bruce said shortly.

“Okay,” Dick said slowly, sliding into the Batmobile. “Do you think it’s a little strange that we haven’t seen, like, any weird stuff on patrol in over a week? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so quiet.”

“Yes,” Bruce said, considering, “it’s unusual, but not unexpected - there haven’t been any major breakouts in weeks, the mob is quiet, and neither we nor GCPD have managed to track down any more of that drug Strange and Scarecrow were using.”

“I just feel like something bad’s gonna happen,” Dick persisted, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“This is Gotham,” Bruce said. “It always feels that way.”

Dick was silent for the rest of the trip back to the Cave. When they pulled in, the cavern was empty, and Dick sulked as he got out of the car.

“Isn’t Clark coming over?” Dick asked in a tone of voice that was dangerously close to a whine.

“I promised, didn’t I?” came Clark’s voice from behind them. Bruce didn’t startle, but Dick did - he jumped slightly, wheeling around to face Superman, who was dressed in civvies and standing awkwardly just behind the Batmobile.

“Yeah, you did,” Dick said, grinning wide. “I’ll see you at breakfast!”

“Night, Dick,” Clark said, ruffling the kid’s hair. Beaming, Dick rushed up the stairs, leaving Clark and Bruce alone in the Cave.

“Hey,” Clark said, watching Bruce almost warily as he took off the cowl and gauntlets.

“I’ve been thinking about the article you’re writing,” Bruce said abruptly, running a hand through his hair to mitigate the effects of his cowl.

Clark was next to him before Bruce had time to blink, walking next to him as Bruce stripped out of the Batsuit while moving unerringly towards the staircase. “I’m not even sure it’s an article anymore. Perry told me to drop it.”

“I know,” Bruce said, frowning. “Lex stopped by the _Planet_ today.” He dropped the broken grapnel on the floor along with the cowl.

“Did he pressure Perry?” Clark said as they stepped out from behind the grandfather clock and into the warmth of the mansion proper. “Ask him to kill the story?”

“Yes,” Bruce said shortly.

Clark waited, as if to see if Bruce would say anything more. “Well,” he said when it became clear Bruce wasn’t going to talk, “it’s not unusual for Luthor to try and get rid of stories that portray him in a negative light. He probably just doesn’t want me covering the fact that, were he to control Arkham and Blackgate, even Belle Reve, funding would go disproportionately to controlling celebrity villains.”

“Why not, though?” Bruce said, stripping out of his undershirt as they reached his room. “Law and order politicians would rally behind that plan. Fox News would love it. It could give him a national platform from which to run for political office. Why would he want it buried?”

Clark frowned. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. But still-”

He was interrupted by the sound of his League communicator going off. “Fucking hell,” Bruce swore, leaning heavily on the frame of the bathroom door. He had never been more disappointed to be denied a shower.

“What is it?” Clark answered, already unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the shield underneath. Bruce switched on his own comm to listen in.

“Hey, Supes!” Flash said, the sound of explosions almost drowning out his voice. “Hate to bother you this late at night, but there are, ah - what would you call these, Lantern?” he shouted into the comm, making Bruce wince.

“Sea monsters? Hydras?” came Lantern’s voice, distinctly strained in concentration.

“Hydras, yeah,” Flash said, wind whooshing in the comm as he ran, “in downtown Miami. They’ve got this external armor on their bodies that’s crazy thick, we can’t get anything through it-”

“Cyborg is down!” came Aquaman’s voice. “Tell him to get over here, there’s no time!”

“I’ll get us there,” Clark said, finally chiming in, the Batsuit already in his hands. He must’ve grabbed it while Flash and Lantern wasted time talking.

“Us?” Flash said, the confusion in his voice slightly obscured by the sound of inhuman screeching on his end of the line. Bruce yanked on the boots as Clark worked on fastening the catches on his legs and torso.

“Yes, _us_ ,” Bruce said into his own communicator, slightly stung that Flash hadn’t thought to contact him, though he knew he had emphasized that he was not to be called unless it was an absolute emergency.

“Okay, whatever, just _get_ here,” Lantern shouted.

The comm went dead, and Clark turned to Bruce as he pulled on the cowl. “Ready?”

“Let’s go,” Batman said.

He never got used to flying with Superman, no matter how many times he was forced to hitch a ride. Batman didn’t enjoy it - the position was never dignified, since it was easier for Superman to carry a passenger in his arms. The first time he’d flown Batman to a battle, Bruce had insisted on riding on Clark’s back, and had almost immediately been thrown off due to wind resistance. Clark had caught Bruce, proceeded to berate him for his stubbornness for the rest of the flight, and told him in no uncertain terms that he would not catch Bruce the next time he did something so stupid (an obvious bluff). The process had become no more pleasant since they started sleeping together.

They arrived in Miami in what seemed to be the middle of a hurricane. The winds were so fierce that the rain appeared to be sweeping the ground in sheets, water flooding storm drains and creeping up around the ankles of the Justice League as they fought what looked like a writhing mass of serpentine heads, stretching into the sky from a jumble of gigantic, reptilian bodies. All told, the creatures were at least thirty feet tall. The members of the Justice League were fighting desperately on the beach next to a ruined pier and the remnants of several floating docks. Condominiums lined the beachfront, with only a narrow street between them and the commotion. Fortunately, it seemed no civilians were stupid enough to go outside, because the street was completely clear.

Superman dropped Batman over the battle before speeding forward to punch one of the hydra heads squarely in its jaw. The force of the blow severed the head from the neck, and Batman watched, unsurprised, as two more heads began to sprout from the open wound.

A loud cry came from behind the JL, and Batman watched from the corner of his eye as Diana descended from the sky like an avenging angel, sword flashing despite the darkness of the storm and the surrounding night.

“Bats, you made it!” Flash said, skidding to a stop next to Batman, panting slightly with effort. “We can’t figure out how to kill them.”

“It was one of the trials of Heracles, in the old days,” Diana said over the comm. “He killed the Hydra of Lake Lerna by cutting off its heads and burning the stumps so that they could not grow back”

“Cauterization,” Batman repeated. “Superman, do you copy?”

“Got it, B,” Superman said, barely dodging one head as it lunged for his side.

“Flash, you and I will distract them,” Batman said. “Diana and Lantern, go for the heads. Superman, burn them.”

“How many are there, Supes?” Flash said, springing into action as Batman pulled tear gas out of one of his belt pockets.

Superman shot upwards. “Twenty, give or take.”

Batman dodged a lunge from one of the hydras, steadily drawing it out and away from the group. “Aquaman, report.”

“I can’t control them,” Aquaman said after a brief pause. “I’m not even sure where they came from. They’re not like anything I’ve seen before.”

Teeth snapped at Batman’s cape, tearing easily through the high-tech fabric before Diana could get there to chop off the head. “Search the harbor. Someone might be controlling them.” Superman zipped past, carefully cauterizing the wound. No heads grew back.

“Can’t I just burn them?” Superman said, landing lightly next to Batman.

Batman watched Aquaman, who was trying to get to the water, attempt to impale one of the creatures on his trident. It didn’t work. “Go ahead, try.”

Superman turned to the nearest hydra, unleashing the full force of his heat vision onto its chest. Nothing happened, and Superman blinked, taking a step back. “Okay, then. Worth a shot.”

“Heat resistant scale armor. Interesting. The only weak point seems to be their necks. No armor there.” Batman turned away, tossing another flash grenade at the feet of a particularly large monster. Superman took off again, and Batman ducked behind a piece of rubble as the hydra reeled, disoriented, and knocked out two streetlights. “Shit,” Batman cursed, pulling a couple flares out of his belt and lighting them before throwing them into the fray. He watched as Flash sped by, lightning streaking behind him, one of the creatures on his tail until Diana chopped off all seven of its heads in one fell swoop.

“That’s thirteen,” Superman said, stopping next to Batman and holding out a hand to help him up.

“What are you helping me for, then?” Batman taunted, shoving Superman back towards the battle. “Go.”

Superman took off, quickly locating Lantern, who was engaged with a hydra that had grown an astonishing ten extra heads. Batman pulled out another gas canister, but before he could throw it, he noticed a shape moving in his peripheral vision. He quickly took stock of the people who could help him: Diana, Superman, and Lantern were all working on the same monster, trying frantically to cut off heads and cauterize them before more could grow in their place. Aquaman was presumably searching the harbor, and Flash was busy luring them away from an apartment building. He had no idea where J’onn was, but would have very much appreciated his help at that particular moment - as it was, he was on his own.

Batman turned to face the hydra, acutely aware that his fists would be of no use against it, and readied his grapnel to dodge it.One of its heads lunged, and Batman fired the grapnel at a nearby condo building. As he raced past the hydra, he came within a foot of one of its many necks, and saw that the scale armor appeared to have spread from its reptilian body halfway up its necks.Distracted, he hit the building harder than he wanted, nearly losing his grip on the grapnel. As if sensing his error, the monster wheeled to face him, its heads hissing and showing their fangs. Batman reached for his second grapnel and found an empty space on his belt, realizing with a dawning sense of horror that he had forgotten to replace the one that had broken earlier that night while he was on patrol.

“Fuck,” he said quietly, watching in what felt like slow-motion as one of the heads recoiled, tensing up to strike. He leaped from the side of the building as the head began to move forward, just clearing its snapping jaws, and came down hard on the creature’s back, which was slick and hard, like plate armor. His ankle, already weak from earlier, twisted unpleasantly in what felt like a possible break. Batman slipped from the hydra’s back and began to fall.

Bracing for the impact, he noticed a shape flying at him from the right, but it wasn’t a head. The hydra’s tail made contact with his right side, and he felt at least one rib - probably one that was freshly healed - crack. The force of the blow propelled him, still airborne, across the beach, only stopping when he slammed into one of the wooden posts from the ruined pier. He collapsed to the ground, desperately gasping for air, taking stock of his pain to see if he’d managed to puncture a lung.

“Batman!” Superman yelled, a frantic edge creeping into his voice.

“I’m fine,” Batman said, waving Superman off before he could fly over. “Just kill the rest.” His vision dimmed slightly, and he shook his head, trying to ward off unconsciousness. He probably had a concussion, he just needed to make it a few more minutes….

“Batman? _Batman!_ ”

Batman jerked violently, rib crying out in protest, and looked up to see Superman kneeling next to him. He must have passed out - there were no more hydras on the beach, and the rest of the team was gathered in a circle, tending to Cyborg. “I’m fine,” Batman said, trying to project confidence and calm.

“No, you’re not, you have a broken rib, a mild concussion, and an injured ankle,” Superman protested. “Not to mention contusions all over your torso.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Batman said, struggling to sit upright and not hunched over what felt like a knife in his chest. “Like why you would be enough of an idiot to charge in like that, without any intel on what we were up against.”

“I was the idiot? You were the one who forgot to replace your grapnel gun before flying up a condo building!”

“You were the one to get my costume from the Cave, so I take no responsibility for that.”

Superman’s mask disappeared, replaced by Clark, whose face was softened by rain and darkness and gentle laughter lines. “I love you,” he said, leaning in to brush his lips against Bruce’s.

“Clark, the team-”

“Oh, who cares,” Clark said dismissively, carefully wrapping an arm around Bruce to help him up, eyes trained on his chest - probably making sure he didn’t do any more damage to the cracked rib.“It’s not like we could keep it from them anyways.”

“Is Cyborg all right?” Bruce asked, leaning heavily on Clark as he put weight on his ankle for the first time.

Clark nodded. “He’s fine. Woke up right after you were thrown.”

“Good,” Bruce said, finally turning to see the assembled members of the Justice League staring at them, mouths hanging open to varying degrees - all save Diana, who looked conflicted, almost guilty.

“You all right, Batman?” Barry said uncertainly.

“No, he isn’t,” Clark said before Bruce could speak. “Let’s get back to the Watchtower.”

“Sure,” Vic said, looking only a little worse for wear.

Vic transported them back to the Tower, and Clark immediately began to steer Bruce towards the medical bay.

“We can do this later, we need to debrief the mission,” Bruce protested, attempting to dig in his heels and knowing it was useless. His ankle was too injured and Clark too strong to make any sort of difference.

“We’ll do it now. The debrief can wait.”

Bruce rolled his eyes, but let himself be guided to a hospital bed. He sat down tentatively and began to undo the clasps on his suit, wincing slightly as he twisted to reach the ones on his side.

“Stop,” Clark said quietly, back at the bedside with wraps for his chest and ankle. Bruce leaned back on his left hand, letting Clark’s clever fingers do the work on the catches.

“Are they listening?” Bruce asked.

Clark shrugged. “Probably,” he said, cutting open Bruce’s undershirt with surgical scissors so that he wouldn’t have to pull it off over his head. “I’m not sorry for kissing you. I was really worried there, for a moment. You were unresponsive.”

Bruce nodded in acknowledgement. “I know. After what happened with Diana, though….”

“You don’t know it’ll be like that for everyone,” Clark pointed out as he began to wrap Bruce’s chest. “We’re adults, Bruce. We make our own choices.”

“It could affect the team.”

“They’ll get over it. So will Diana.” Clark taped the wrapping in place and stared hard at Bruce’s ankle, presumably x-raying it. “You have a stress fracture.”

Damn it. He’d have to stay off it for at least a few days. “Of course I do. Just make it quick,” Bruce said as Clark bent down to remove his left boot.

He did -it was off in the next half-second, and the accompanying pain was quick to fade. “I’m the second fastest man alive,” Clark said, smiling up at Bruce as he slowly bandaged his ankle. “I’m always quick.”

“You know, as weird as this whole situation is, I’m really glad you’ve finally admitted I’m faster than you, Big Blue,” Barry said, appearing next to Clark as if he’d teleported. He clapped him on the shoulder after Clark let go of Bruce’s ankle, which was now fully wrapped. “Humility does wonders for your disposition.”

“You know, if you listened to yourself, you could maybe even learn something,” Clark shot back, grabbing a zip-up hoodie and some sweatpants from the stash they kept handy - it was truly shocking how often heroes like Superman managed to destroy their own costumes in battle.

“So, you guys?” Barry pressed, gesturing between Clark and Bruce.

“Yes,” Bruce said shortly, hoping that would end the conversation. It didn’t.

Barry nodded. “Ahuh, ahuh. And, um, sorry, but…” he said, looking expectantly at them, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.

Clark stood up straight, adopting an almost Superman-like stance. “Lois and I are no longer together.”

The bouncing intensified. “Right. Right, okay. But, like, _when_ did this happen?”

Bruce stared at Barry, trying to figure out his aim. Why did it even matter? Bruce pulled on the sweatpants, choosing to ignore him. 

“That’s none of your business,” Clark said finally, after several seconds of tense silence.

Barry looked down at his feet, appropriately chastised. “Sure. I’ll, ah - I’ll just go now.” He fled the room, a flash of lightning following him out.

“That was weird,” Clark said, helping Bruce to his feet.

“It’s Barry,” Bruce said by way of explanation, shrugging and placing weight on his ankle. Clark had actually done a good job, for someone nearly impervious to sprains or breaks of any type.

Clark nodded like Bruce’s comment made perfect sense. “Fair point. Want to go back to the manor?”

Bruce glanced at the clock. “Alfred’ll be up by now.”

“And?” Clark prompted.

“He’ll want to reexamine me,” Bruce grumbled, ignoring the sharp jabs of pain coming from his broken rib. “Which sounds… unpleasant.”

“Dick’ll be worried.”

“That’s what texting is for.”

“I hate it when you’re right,” Clark laughed, wrapping an arm around Bruce’s waist protectively before helping him forward. It should have made Bruce furious, to be treated like something so breakable. It didn’t. “Um… would you like to come back to my place, then?”

“I haven’t been to your new apartment,” Bruce said thoughtfully as they made their way down the hall.

Clark looked surprised. “Haven’t you? What, no surveillance equipment?”

“Not yet, at least,” Bruce admitted.

“Come over. Ma sent cookies, they came in the mail yesterday.”

“How could I turn down some of Martha’s cookies?”

“I don’t know, Bruce,” Clark mused as they entered the monitor room. “I have it on good authority you don’t have a heart.”

“And whose authority is that?”

“Mine,” said Diana, who had been watching the exchange from next to the expansive glass windows that made up the observation deck.

“Nice to know my Ancient Greek is as good as ever,” Bruce said under his breath.

She frowned at him. “Yes. Now, though, I am not so sure about this.”

“Di,” Clark said, gently disentangling himself from Bruce. “About last time - I’m sorry it happened that way.”

“I know,” Diana said. “But it is I who am sorry. I should not have reacted the way I did. It was… unreasonable.”

“You were just defending a friend,” Bruce said. “There’s nothing unreasonable in that.”

Diana stared at them for a moment, then ran a hand through her salt-stiffened hair. “When I was a child, my mother told me a story about a man who came to her island on a quest. He wanted to steal her girdle, the thing which gave her all of her authority as Queen, simply because he had been tasked this challenge. When he arrived, he asked for an audience with my mother, who granted it, so long as he left his weapons with his men. But he betrayed her. He brought weapons into the chamber and took her belt from her. And that, my mother told me, is why the Amazon do not tolerate men on Paradise Island.

“My aunt later told me that my mother had suffered greatly at the hands of this invader. I wondered, who could this man be, that he could do this to her? They told me that all men are this savage. Ruled only by their hormones and emotions. All men - even gods. For the man who came to the island and raped my mother was none other than Heracles himself, champion of legend.You see, I did not grow up to love men. I did not grow up to even give them an audience. But I am not on Paradise Island. And you are not Heracles.” She paused, looking at Bruce and Clark with something close to urgency in her eyes. “This will change everything.”

“We knew that going in,” Clark said. “Our job performance hasn’t been affected. You think Bruce would let it keep going if it did?”

_Yes._

“Of course not,” Diana conceded. “I trust you. Both of you. But I shall remain angry with you for a while longer. For Lois.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” Bruce said. “Thank you, Diana.”

She nodded slightly, then whirled around and disappeared with a blur of red, blue, and gold.

“Let’s leave, before anyone else can corner us,” Clark said, glancing around the room suspiciously, as if someone might be hiding in the shadows, waiting for their chance to pounce.

Bruce laughed. “That’s the best idea you’ve had all night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos are, as always, loved and appreciated, as are kind comments of the sort that will not make me cry or never want to write again <3


	9. epilogue

“Did you realize that their armor was evolving?”

“What?” Clark said, looking up from where he was currently sucking Bruce’s dick.

“Their armor. Did you see that? The scales, by the time the battle was ending, were traveling up their necks.”

Clark brushed the hair out of his eyes and sat up slowly. “Are you thinking about those damn hydras while _Superman_ is giving you head?”

“It’s almost as if it was adapting. Evolving to suit the needs of the battle. Like an intelligent defense system.”

“Again, can we get back to the fact that you literally broke off a blowjob - wait, how are you still hard?”

Bruce ignored him. “It must be some sort of DNA mutation. We didn’t find any robotic pieces in the rubble, so they are clearly organic life forms, which means it must have been something within them that created the defenses… in response to external stimuli.”

Clark pouted, but seemed willing to humor Bruce. “Sounds like Doomsday.”

“Doomsday,” Bruce repeated absently. “It has to be connected.”

“ _O_ kay,” Clark said, “but how about we worry about that some other time, you know, when you’re not hard as a rock and I’m not in the middle of giving the best head of my life.”

Bruce leaned back against the pillows on Clark’s bed, staring out the window thoughtfully into the gleaming Metropolis dawn. “Sorry. You know I don’t do well, separating work from play.”

“Seems to go for both of us,” Clark said, and then his mouth was fully occupied. Bruce sank further into the sheets, watching the shadows creep across the room as he focused on Clark’s hands and tongue. It took him mere minutes to come after that, and Clark sank into bed next to him wearing a small, satisfied smile.

“Don’t you want-”

“No,” Clark cut in. “Not tonight. Just you is more than enough.”

Bruce’s phone, which had been face-down on the bedside table, buzzed insistently. He picked it up and frowned.

_Hal: Hey so when did you and CK first like do it_

_B:In no way does that concern you._

_Hal: We’re friends. We’re pals. Cmon. Just gimme a date_

_B: Since when are we pals?_

_Hal: Well, you added me on Facebook, sooo_

“Who is it?” Clark asked sleepily, face partially buried in a pillow.

“Hal,” Bruce said, staring down at his phone, trying to imagine any reality in which he would have voluntarily added Hal Jordan on Facebook.

“What does he want?” Clark said, making an aborted motion as if he’d considered sitting up and then thought better of it.

“He _also_ wants to know when we started sleeping together,” Bruce said.

Clark frowned. “That’s weird. First Barry, now Hal?”

_B: Why do you want to know?_

_Hal: Barry and I have a bet._

“That’s not a good look,” Clark said, appearing slightly more alert at what was likely a dangerously angry expression on Bruce’s face.

“They bet on it.”

Gaping, Clark said, “Him and Barry?”

“Yes.”

_B: And what’s your bet?_

_Hal: if you slept together before or after the separation_

_Hal: I said after_

_Hal: Clark’s too pure_

Clark, who was now propped up one one elbow reading the thread over Bruce’s shoulder, said, “Jesus Christ, we need to set some boundaries.”

“Too late,” Bruce said. “I wonder….”

_B: What exactly did you bet?_

_Hal: one week of monitor duty_

“We should tell them,” Clark said.

“ _What_?”

He nodded. “Well, yeah. Imagine Hal’s face when he realizes he has to do an entire week’s worth of Barry’s shifts.”

Bruce stared at him. “Imagine _telling them at all_. We are not doing this.”

Clark grinned, then flipped over to grab his own phone off the other bedside table. “Too late,” he said, already typing out a message.

“Don’t you dare,” Bruce began, trying to reach over to yank the phone out of Clark’s hand. He was brought up short by his rib, which severely protested the movement. “Fuck.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Clark said cheerfully, hitting send. Bruce’s phone buzzed and he glanced down to see that Clark had included him in the group message.

_C: three months ago_

There was a brief pause, then:

_Barry: SUCK IT HAL_

_Barry: AND YOU HAVE TO TAKE MY SHIFT WITH BATMAN_

_B: I’m right here, Barry._

_Barry: oops sorry_

_Hal: Fuck all of you_

“See?” Clark said, throwing the phone back on the table and leaning in to kiss Bruce’s collarbone. “Worth it.”

Bruce rolled his eyes but said nothing, instead choosing to watch the sunrise play over Clark’s tousled hair, the soft light of dawn chasing all the shadows away, if only for a moment.

**Author's Note:**

> i also apologize for posting this approximately 2 months after it was promised oops i got depressed and writing made me sad for a while but here you go
> 
> oh and in case you were wondering, there will be a part three, and it will likely not be here for many moons, but it is definitely, definitely coming. and it will be the last part. i regret spending so much time on this universe, there are approximately 6000 other fics i have to write but i just got. so. into. this. one.


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